This article in Revista Peruana de Medicina Experimental y Salud Pública by CapacityPlus’s deputy director for HRH and health systems strengthening provides guidance for putting health workforce tools into action.
The global human resources for health (HRH) challenge remains persistent. In 2006, the World Health Report identified 57 crisis countries, and, despite increased attention and investment in strengthening the workforce, those countries are still in crisis. While many countries have HRH plans, this paper asserts that a major reason countries remain in crisis is the lack of sustained implementation to achieve concrete workforce strengthening results. It is critical for HRH leaders to take action to ensure that already available tools are disseminated, adapted, and used to foster effective implementation at the country level. The paper highlights four such tools as examples that can be used to build implementation capacity, and offers recommendations to support more results-oriented implementation.