Course in Human Resources for Health (HRH)

This course provides knowledge and skills that healthcare managers, policymakers, and planners need for human resource planning and management. It discusses policies, strategies, and practices at a national and workplace level to address health workforce issues.

This course is tropEd accredited and can be followed as a stand-alone course or as part of the Master in International Health or Master in Public Health programmes.

Content

How can policymakers and managers improve the performance of the health workforce? How does one plan human resources? How can organizational development contribute to the performance of health workers?

The quality of health service delivery depends largely on the availability and performance of qualified personnel, aided by sufficient facilities, equipment, and drugs. Policymakers and managers can influence the performance of health workers by using carefully formulated and implemented human resources for health policies and strategies developed in consultation with stakeholders. In order to enhance workforce performance, policy makers and managers also need to be able to analyze organizational culture and behavior and to identify appropriate leadership skills.

This course addresses the knowledge and skills that policy makers and managers need for human resource planning and management. It provides an overview of the situation of Human Resources for Health (HRH) from a global perspective and subsequently discusses policies, strategies, and practices at a national level and at the workplace to address health workforce issues. Topics include rational planning, training, governance and gender, performance retention and motivation and, leadership and organizational change.

Objectives

At the end of the module the participants should be able to:

• explain the concept of Human Resources in the health sector
• analyze and discuss the various issues in human resources in the health sector
• discuss different strategies to assure sufficient and qualified staff are equitably distributed
• critically appraise staff performance, identify performance problems and suggest appropriate solutions
• critically assess training programs for healthcare workers and provide appropriate recommendations for improvement
• analyze organizational behavior and discuss strategic options and leadership styles for a change

Course Content

• Introduction to HRH
• Strategic planning of HRH
• Workload
• Retention, motivation, and performance of health workers
• Governance and HRH, including migration
• Addressing gender and rights in HRH policies and plans
• Training
• Leadership and organizational change