The Health Workforce in Latin America and the Caribbean

The Health Workforce in Latin America and the Caribbean PDF

Author: Carmen Carpio

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2015-06-25

Total Pages: 133

ISBN-13: 1464805954

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This report provides a status update on the human resources for health (HRH) sub-system in six Latin American and Caribbean countries: Colombia, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay. The report structures its discussion around how the health workforce is financed, organized, managed, regulated, and performing. In the area of financing, the study presents the variety of contracting mechanisms, salary levels, and financial incentives offered across the countries and their role in being able to attract and retain health workers. On the organization of the HRH sub-system, the report looks at the skill-mix, training, and distribution of health care workers concluding that although the countries have made progress towards achieving key HRH targets and in making education more accessible, there continues to be limited absorption capacity for graduates, the Primary Health Care focus of training programs needs to be strengthened, and strategies to encourage rural service have not been able to fully address the gap in the distribution of health workers. In reviewing management strategies for HRH, the report presents how all countries have adopted the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel to recognize foreign-trained professionals to help address shortages and fill gaps of health worker presence in rural, remote areas. However, the countries continue to struggle with putting self-sufficiency policies in place to meet HRH needs such as the lack of promotion plans, limited non-monetary incentives, and the shortage of personnel for recruitment and eventual placement. In the area of regulation, the report presents the countries' efforts to reduce precarious employment and introduce HRH safety policies and legislation to regulate disputes and negotiations. On performance, the report found mixed results in the areas of access/availability to health workers and quality of care, factors discouraging dual practice, and unjustified absenteeism of health workers.

A Situational Analysis of the Health Workforce Sub-System in Six Latin American and Caribbean Countries

A Situational Analysis of the Health Workforce Sub-System in Six Latin American and Caribbean Countries PDF

Author: Carmen Carpio

Publisher:

Published: 2015-06-19

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 9781464805943

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The health workforce is the foundation of care and affects quality and outcomes; human resources for health(HRH) constitutes the largest portion of the health care budget of most countries. Latin America and theCaribbean has been challenged by imbalances in workforce composition, distribution, and skill mix, as wellas by variations in productivity and quality.The Health Workforce in Latin America and the Caribbean: An Analysis of Colombia, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Panama,Peru, and Uruguay provides an update on HRH in these six countries. The discussion is structured around fivekey areas of the workforce: financing, organization, management, regulation, and performance.** Financing: The authors present the variety of contracting mechanisms, salary levels, and financialincentives, and their roles in attracting and retaining health workers.** Organization: The countries have made progress toward achieving HRH targets and making educationmore accessible. However, the absorption capacity remains limited for graduates, the primary health carefocus of training programs needs to be strengthened, and the strategies to encourage rural service havenot effectively addressed the distribution gap of health workers.** Management: All six countries have adopted the World Health Organization's Global Code of Practice onthe International Recruitment of Health Personnel to recognize foreign-trained professionals to helpaddress shortages and fill gaps in rural and remote areas. However, the countries continue to strugglewith implementing self-sufficiency policies to build the capacity to meet needs. Such policies includepromotion plans, nonmonetary incentives, and personnel for recruitment and eventual placement.** Regulation: The countries are working to reduce precarious and unprotected employment, introducesafety policies to decrease occupational diseases and workplace accidents, and enact legislation toresolve disputes.** Performance: Mixed results have been achieved in health outcomes, access and availability, quality ofcare and patient satisfaction, professional practice, and productivity and efficiency.

Toward Universal Health Coverage and Equity in Latin America and the Caribbean

Toward Universal Health Coverage and Equity in Latin America and the Caribbean PDF

Author: Tania Dmytraczenko

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2015-06-30

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 1464804559

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Over the past three decades, many countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have recognized health as a human right. Since the early 2000s, 46 million more people in the countries studied are covered by health programs with explicit guarantees of affordable care. Reforms have been accompanied by a rise in public spending for health, financed largely from general revenues that prioritized or explicitly target the population without capacity to pay. Political commitment has generally translated into larger budgets as well as passage of legislation that ring-fenced funding for health. Most countries have prioritized cost-effective primary care and adopted purchasing methods that incentivize efficiency and accountability for results, and that give stewards of the health sector greater leverage to steer providers to deliver on public health priorities. Evidence from the analysis of 54 household surveys corroborates that investments in extending coverage are yielding results. Though the poor still have worse health outcomes than the rich, disparities have narrowed considerably - particularly in the early stage of the life course. Countries have reached high levels of coverage and equity in utilization of maternal and child health services; coverage of noncommunicable disease interventions is not as high and service utilization is still skewed toward the better off. Catastrophic health expenditures have declined in most countries; the picture regarding equity, however, is mixed. While the rate of impoverishment owing to health-care expenditures is low and generally declining, 2-4 million people in the countries studied still fall below the poverty line after health spending. Efforts to systematically monitor quality of care in the region are still in their infancy. Nonetheless, a review of the literature reveals important shortcomings in quality of care, as well as substantial differences across subsystems. Improving quality of care and ensuring sustainability of investments in health remain an unfinished agenda.

Global Trends 2040

Global Trends 2040 PDF

Author: National Intelligence Council

Publisher: Cosimo Reports

Published: 2021-03

Total Pages: 158

ISBN-13: 9781646794973

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"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.

Fiscal Space for Health in Latin America and the Caribbean

Fiscal Space for Health in Latin America and the Caribbean PDF

Author: Pan American Pan American Health Organization

Publisher: Pan American Health Organization

Published: 2020-06-30

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 9789275220009

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Countries that have made the most progress toward universal coverage have public expenditures in health equivalent to at least 6% of their gross domestic product (GDP), which is the percentage established in PAHO's universal health strategy as the benchmark for the countries. However, while higher expenditure is a prerequisite, it is not enough to combat inequities and advance toward universal health. In addition to greater resources, the quality of the expenditure must be improved, reducing health system inefficiencies. Moreover, public expenditure in health should be sustainably increased in a fiscally responsible manner. The concept of fiscal space for health refers to the ability of governments to provide additional budgetary resources for the health system without affecting the financial position of the public sector or supplanting other socially necessary expenditures. Any analysis of fiscal space, therefore, will attempt to identify the prospects for increasing health expenditure in the short and medium term to address a series of clearly established health needs. These efforts are under way at a critical time in the Region of the Americas, particularly in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, which are engaged in a singular health system reform process. For the first time in history, these countries have formalized their intention of increasing public expenditure in health, putting themselves firmly on the path to real and effective access to health care through the universal health strategy. Without achieving basic well-being at this level, it will be impossible to improve social cohesion and social development in the countries of the Region. This publication brings together and summarizes PAHO's studies on fiscal space for universal health in the Americas and draws on the contributions of the regional forum held in Washington, D.C. on 7-8 December 2015. With this publication, whose target audience is the technical personnel responsible for policy development, decision-makers, and authorities, PAHO hopes to contribute to the analysis and discussion of health financing policies on the path toward universal health.

Historical Perspectives on the State of Health and Health Systems in Africa, Volume II

Historical Perspectives on the State of Health and Health Systems in Africa, Volume II PDF

Author: Mario J. Azevedo

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-01-24

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 3319325647

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This book focuses on Africa’s challenges, achievements, and failures over the past several centuries using an interdisciplinary approach that combines theory and fact and evidence-based practices and interventions in public health, and argues that most of the health problems in Africa are not a result of scarce or lack of resources, but of the misconceived and misplaced priorities that have left the continent behind every other on the globe in terms of health, education, and equitable distribution of opportunities and access to (quality) health as agreed by the United Nations member states at Alma-Ata in 1978.

The World Health Report 2006

The World Health Report 2006 PDF

Author: World Health Organization

Publisher: World Health Organization

Published: 2006-03-23

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 9241563176

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The 2006 World Health Report focuses on the chronic shortages of doctors, midwives, nurses and other health care support workers in the poorest countries of the world where they are most needed. This is particularly true in sub-Saharan Africa, which has only four in every hundred global health workers but has a quarter of the global burden of disease, and less than one per cent of the world's financial resources. Poor working conditions, high rates of attrition due to illness and migration, and education systems that are unable to pick up the slack reflect the depth of the challenges in these crisis countries. This report considers the challenges involved and sets out a 10-year action plan designed to tackle the crisis over the next ten years, by which countries can strengthen their health system by building their health workforces and institutional capacity with the support of global partners.

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