New Resource Spotlight: Interview with Sara Pacqué-Margolis on the HRH Indicator Compendium
One of the challenges in health systems strengthening is measuring and evaluating the work. “You value what you measure, and measure what you value,” says Sara Pacqué-Margolis, coauthor of a new CapacityPlus resource. “You don’t pay attention to activities that you don’t monitor.” 
Currently the metrics for health systems in general, and human resources for health (HRH) in particular, are not as well developed or disseminated as other public health areas, such as health service use or fertility and mortality outcomes. Many practitioners do not even know what metrics are recommended for monitoring and evaluating progress in the health workforce arena.
“Although there’s a lot going on in terms of health workforce activities in the areas of leadership, finance, workforce development, retention, etc., practitioners and managers are not adequately monitoring those activities. Many are not even aware that there are valid, high-quality indicators out there,” says Pacqué-Margolis.
To address this need, the “Human resources for health (HRH) indicator compendium”—a new CapacityPlus resource by Sara Pacqué-Margolis, Crystal Ng, and Sylvia Kauffman—provides a set of indicators from published sources on the key areas of HRH. Organized according to the CapacityPlus results framework, the compendium’s objective is to provide a user-friendly, online tool for HRH systems strengthening practitioners—such as Ministry of Health or nongovernmental organization employees or monitoring and evaluation experts.
“In [monitoring and evaluation] we spend hours and days developing indicators and creating documents that end up sitting on shelves,” says Pacqué-Margolis. The compendium is available through an online, interactive format, which makes it more accessible and easier to use, as well as a PDF document that users can download. In addition, the indicators will be updated regularly to ensure that this tool remains state-of-the art. 
Data gathered through program monitoring “are important to demonstrate accountability to government and other donors, and practitioners should use these data to refine and adapt HRH plans, policies, and programs,” says Pacqué-Margolis. “Right now, in HRH, it’s difficult to demonstrate results—and that you’ve used your money to produce the results—if you’re not collecting data and monitoring progress against indicators.”
A related challenge is that many countries are not implementing the surveys or information systems required to generate the necessary data. It may be well-intentioned to include, for example, a retention indicator, but without the system for generating the data, the indicator is useless. For successful HRH monitoring, countries need help in building capacity and systems to generate high-quality and comprehensive data for the indicators.
“If we really want to have an impact, we need to start monitoring and then using information and evidence, to refine and adapt our plans, policies, etc.,” says Pacqué-Margolis. CapacityPlus has already received requests from practitioners interested in using the HRH indicator compendium. “I think,” she continues, “we’ll see greater impact and dissemination because of the format.”
The authors welcome user feedback on the HRH indicator compendium. Please contact Sara Pacqué-Margolis with any comments or questions.
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Photo by Jennifer Solomon
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