18 November 2013

Last week, at the Third Global Forum on Human Resources for Health in Recife, Brazil, KIT presented several projects on human resources for health that have been conducted in the past year.

The Forum

The Third Global Forum on Human Resources for Health  is one of the main global health events in 2013, that brought together over 2000 policy makers, experts and advocates in the health workforce field, and frontline health workers. The event theme was Human Resources for Health: foundation for Universal Health Coverage and the post-2015 development agenda. The Global Health Workforce Alliance (GHWA) organized the Forum under the patronage of the Government of Brazil, WHO and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

Universal Health Care Coverage

More and more countries are adhering to the principle of universal health coverage (UHC); the goal that all people obtain the good quality health services they need without the risks of financial hardship linked to paying for them. Consequence is that the role of the health workforce becomes even more critical in the provision of health services to all people who need it. How to determine the need and plan for human resources for health (HRH) in view of UHC? How to ensure that the limited number of available midwives, nurses, doctors, Community Health Workers (CHWs) and other staff are trained and employed in the most effective and cost-efficient way? KIT’s expertise provides an excellent starting point for the development of targeted strategies to work towards universal coverage of good quality health services, in particular those services needed to reduce maternal en neonatal mortality.

Our contribution

On Saturday November 9^th, KIT presented a paper that it developed with USAID on knowledge gaps and a need based global research agenda on Community Health Workers (CHW), during a side event organized by GHWA, USAID, NORAD and the Frontline Health Workers Coalition.

• Research paper: http://www.who.int/workforcealliance/knowledge/resources/knowledge_gaps/en/index.html

The French Muskoka Initiative

On Sunday November 10^th, KIT organized with GHWA, WHO, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministries of Health from Togo and Guinea a side event on the innovative and country-specific HRH planning work in which it is involved as part of the French Muskoka Initiative to improve maternal and child health.  During the side event, the successful use and potential of this approach, that was first developed as part of the High Burden Countries Initiative , was shared and discussed with the participants.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyMlLksAhDQ

Cost-effectiveness study

On Tuesday November 12^th, KIT presented the first outcomes of a cost-effectiveness study on CHW programs in low and middle income countries that was conducted together with the Queen Margaret University of Edinburgh and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. The study is financed by the GHWA and will be published in the beginning of 2014. It consists of a literature review and the development of a generalised cost-effectiveness model to assess cost-effectiveness of CHW programmes in the three selected countries (Indonesia, Ethiopia and Kenya).

Interested to learn more about our work on Human Resources for Health: please contact m.dieleman@kit.nl.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has designated KIT as a Collaborating Center for the training, retention and motivation of health care workers.