Increase Health Workforce Performance and Productivity

Increase Health Workforce Performance and Productivity

Background

In the coming years, many low- and middle-income countries will have to rely extensively on their existing health workforce to meet global health goals. When hiring more workers is not an option, increasing workforce performance and productivity becomes even more of an imperative. Existing frameworks for organizing the delivery of health services often negatively affect the performance of health workers. For example, fixed schedules often prevent clients from using services. Evidence also shows that health workers often spend much of their time in administrative work—not with clients. Delivery of health services can also be impacted by inefficient planning. Skilled health workers find themselves in posts where there is little demand for their services, while posts in areas of high demand remain vacant. Recruitment, retention, and motivation have also emerged as common stumbling blocks to the delivery of quality family planning, HIV/AIDS, and other primary health services.

HRH2030 Focus

HRH2030 strengthens countries’ capacities to improve recruitment, distribution, development, supervision, motivation, and retention of health workers. This includes helping human resources managers at the facility level identify and address gender disparities at service delivery points and within their management units. While applying existing quality improvement tools and modifying them to local contexts, the program also looks across sectors to find solutions to common human resources for health bottlenecks (e.g., information technology, education).

Target Results