Submission: Via Turnitin on unit vUWS site.
Format:
Length: 2500 words
Curriculum Mode: Report
Rationale
The purpose of this assignment is to prepare a national health workforce plan for one country in the category of low and lower-middle income countries, as defined by WHO. These countries in particular have been identified in the latest report by WHO (WHO, 2016) as having a shortfall in health workers of some 18 million by 2030.
Task
The WHO has a system of classification of countries by region and income which is described in Annex 1 of the -World Health Statistics Report, 2015- . (WHO, 2015) (p.160-161). Use the table showing countries on Page 161 in the low and lower-middle income categories to select the country you will use to develop the health workforce plan. 3 This report also provides a range of statistics on the health workforce by country.
The assignment will be scaffolded so that tutorials will support the development of the National Health Workforce Plan on key topics relevant to the development of the workforce plan, including preparing an Environmental Scan, analysing the national health workforce data set, identifying critical issues and developing strategies to address the issues identified. The National Workforce Plan should be a five year plan.
1. Prepare a Table of Contents for the National Health Workforce Plan using report format.
2. Draft the Introduction for the Workforce Plan, including documentation of the rationale for selection of the country.
3. Prepare the Environmental Scan for the health workforce of the selected country using national and international health workforce references including policy and planning documents, and any relevant health workforce plans.
4. Prepare a data profile of the health workforce by category using WHO data and other data sources. Develop the workforce profile using tables and graphs and supporting explanatory text.
5. Based on the previous steps and relevant literature, identify critical issues to be addressed in the workforce plan.
6. Use the set of ten recommendations developed in the WHO 2016 report -Working for health and growth: investing in the health workforce- 4 as a framework to develop strategies relevant to implement the workforce plan (WHO, 2016, p.11-12).
Criteria
You will be assessed according to the following criteria:
— Ability to introduce the topic and findings in a well summarised Executive Summary.
— Understanding of the process of the development of a health workforce plan.
— Preparation of an Environmental Scan,
— Capacity to analyse workforce profile data including the use of charts and tables to support the analysis and presentation.
— Critical analysis and synthesis of the relevant literature to support issues identification and strategies development.
— Academic writing skills, use of report format and APA.
Resources:
Unit material and recommended readings in Modules 3 to 5.
9
Graphic material is an essential way of presenting health workforce data. Topics will be discussed at supporting tutorials.
Use the Hints document on vUWS to identify the relevant sections for report format.
WHO has established Regional Observatories on Human Resources in Health Systems, which includes an Africa Health Workforce Observatory. These regional observatories may include relevant material for the development of the National Health Workforce Plan.
Retrieved from:
http://www.who.int/hrh/governance/en/ http://www.hrhresourcecenter.org/observatory