18 March 2021

Dr David Cochrane Director of Conrane IHS was commissioned by the World Bank to conduct a literature review, identify and report best practice in Workforce planning and management and identify key issues and scope for further improvement to the healthcare delivery systems across the OECD.  

The resulting paper can be downloaded here

In addition we have produced a slide deck that summarises the key findings within the paper that can be downloaded here

The  paper addresses three major current healthcare workforce concerns:

Section 1  reviews how different countries plan their health workforce, the data and methods employed  and the organizational arrangements with a view  to identify  best practice at the national level;

Section 2 reviews how modern human resource management is used in both national policy and within facilities to ensure a motivated workforce. This includes areas such as working conditions, transparent promotion policies, continuous medical education, task-shifting etc;

Section 3 also reflects on how the COVID19 epidemic has influencing  health workforce planning and management going forward including any emergent good practice which can be  carried forward.  

The paper has helped to inform the World Bank’s major report on healthcare workforce mobility across continental Europe^[I] and the pressures created particularly for the net exporting countries. 

References 

[i] Report No: AUS0001857. Europe and Central Asia   Health Workforce Mobility from Croatia, Serbia and North Macedonia to Germany. World  Bank February 12, 2021  http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/489881614056529442/pdf/Main-Report.pdf