Human Resources
in Health Care
Keerti Bhusan Pradhan
[email protected] Healthcare as Service Sector
Healthcare more than any other sector
depends on people to carry out its mission
HR accounts for a high proportion of
budgets assigned to the health sector
Globally 35 million persons are employed
in health sector (ILO)
The economic and human costs of poor HR
are high in the health sector
Health services mission, strategic plans
and quality improvement initiatives are
useless unless there is appropriate policies
and procedures for managing people
Health care key stakeholders are people
and despite changes in the way care is
provided people are always central in the
provision of care whether the care is
preventive, promotive, diagnostic,
curative, chronic or rehabilitative
Healthcare-Science or Art
The Science of Healthcare
That is achieving and delivering
high quality health care
products and services through
use of scientific and innovative
technology
The Art of Healthcare
Managing the human beings who
provide the services and
improve the products
Challenge for health systems
Physical Infrastructure
Governance
Financing
Human Resources (Work Force)
Insufficient Human Capacity
In many developing countries there is
insufficient human capacity to make
use of the newly available resources
New Opportunities are due to:
Scientific Advances (Vaccines…)
Infusion of new money
New drugs
Without a motivated, competent,
well distributed and well supported
workforce-Waste/Misuse of resources
Dimensions of HRH performance
Coverage: the extent to which the allocation of
the workforce corresponds to needed services in
terms of type of services and geographical
access
Productivity: the ratio of outputs relative to
inputs
Technical quality: the extent to which services
have a positive impact on health status
Sociocultural quality: the extent to which
services are acceptable to users and meet their
expectations
Organisation stability: the use of the
workforce so as to guarantee the viability of
services and their capacity to adapt to changing
needs
Challenge of HSR on HR
Changes Implications for WF
Cost Reduction Staff planning, Staff
Improvement in distribution, Working
Performance conditions
Improvement of Incentive System, Work
Equity of access organization, Professional
to services Development Process,
Decentralization Training
of services Deployment of personnel,
Changes in the Methods of recruiting and
health model retaining staff
Transfer of authority,
Skills needed
Redefinition of
professional roles,
Integration of services
Workforce Imbalances
Imbalances between HR management
practices and national policy objectives.
Ex: Where Health Policies aim at developing
PHCare while training programs continue to
prioritize the training of specialized doctors
Mismatches of numbers:
Shortages/surpluses
Qualitative disparity:
resulting from gaps between the training
programs and the requirements of the
country’s health policy
Unequal distribution of workforce:
b/w Geographical areas, professions and
categories, health establishments and
specialities
Characteristics of HR activities
in the health sector
The Intersectoral nature of Health Services
The time-lag between decision making and
outcome
Strong Professional Dominance
Interdependence of the different professional
categories
The role of the state as the principal
employer
The high proportion of the women employed
in health services (Thai study)
The ambiguity of the relationship b/w health
needs, service requirements and resource
needs in the supply of these services
Deficiencies of the market
Policy Issues
Link between effectiveness of health
workforce and improved performance
of health system
Nature of Health workforce
Size, composition, skills, training
needs, current functions and
performance, appropriate roles,
adaptation to changing priorities
Lack of data for evidence
Evidence on the effectiveness of HR
training
Framework for assisting countries for
HR planning and development
THANK YOU