Human Resources for Health Policies : A Critical Component in Health Policies
In the last few years, increasing attention has been paid to the development of health policies. But side by side with the presumed benefits of policy, many analysts share the opinion that a major drawback of health policies is their failure to mak...
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2013
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2004/09/5620059/human-resources-health-policies-critical-component-health-policies http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13688 |
| Summary: | In the last few years, increasing
attention has been paid to the development of health
policies. But side by side with the presumed benefits of
policy, many analysts share the opinion that a major
drawback of health policies is their failure to make room
for issues of human resources. Current approaches in human
resources suggest a number of weaknesses: a reactive, ad hoc
attitude towards problems of human resources; dispersal of
accountability within human resources management (HRM); a
limited notion of personnel administration that fails to
encompass all aspects of HRM; and finally the short-term
perspective of HRM. There are three broad arguments for
modernizing the ways in which human resources for health are
managed: a) the central role of the workforce in the health
sector; b) the various challenges thrown up by health system
reforms; and c) the need to anticipate the effect on the
health workforce (and consequently on service provision)
arising from various macroscopic social trends impinging on
health systems. The absence of appropriate human resources
policies is responsible, in many countries, for a chronic
imbalance with multifaceted effects on the health workforce:
quantitative mismatch, qualitative disparity, unequal
distribution and a lack of coordination between HRM actions
and health policy needs. Four proposals have been put
forward to modernize how the policy process is conducted in
the development of human resources for health (HRH): a) to
move beyond the traditional approach of personnel
administration to a more global concept of HRM; b) to give
more weight to the integrated, interdependent and systemic
nature of the different components of HRM when preparing and
implementing policy; c) to foster a more proactive attitude
among human resources (HR) policy-makers and managers; and
d) to promote the full commitment of all professionals and
sectors in all phases of the process. The development of
explicit human resources policies is a crucial link in
health policies and is needed both to address the imbalances
of the health workforce and to foster implementation of the
health services reforms. |
|---|