مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد نظارت بر نیروی کار بهداشت در پرتغال – الزویر 2020

The quality of the available information on Human Resources for Health (HRH) is critical to planning strategically the future workforce needs. This article aims to assess HRH monitoring in Portugal: the data availability, comparability and quality. A scoping review of academic literature was conducted, which included 76 empirical studies. The content analysis was guided by the World Health Organization ‘AAAQ framework’ that covers availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of the health workforce. The analysis identified three types of problems affecting HRH monitoring in Portugal: insufficient data, the non-use of available data, and the general lack of analysis of the HRH situation. As a consequence, the data availability, comparability and quality is poor, and therefore HRH monitoring in Portugal makes strategic planning of the future health workforce difficult. Recommendations to improve HRH monitoring include: 1) make data collection aligned with the standardized indicators and guidelines by the Joint Eurostat-OECD-World Health Organization questionnaire on Non-Monetary Health Care Statistics; 2) cover the whole workforce, which includes professions, sectors and services; 3) create a mechanism of permanent monitoring and analysis of HRH at the country level.

Introduction

Human resources for health (HRH) are recognized as a critical input of health systems for various reasons: their performance influences the effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare services; they have the capacity to influence users’ lifestyles and well-being, and they are a precondition to achieve universal and equitable access to care [1]. They also account for a substantial proportion of health expenditures [2], which makes them highly vulnerable to cost-containment policies. Shortages of health workers and different types of imbalances (e.g. geographical, by services and skills-mix) are observed in most countries [3-5]. In the context of ageing populations, of the growth of the burden of noncommunicable and chronic diseases, and of better informed and more demanding citizens, pressure is high on policy-makers to adopt measures that improve the capacity of the health workforce to respond adequately to the new needs which these changes entail [6- 7]. The strategic management of current and the planning of future workforce are a pre-requisite to effective reforms [8], and to do so, it is necessary have in place proper monitoring mechanisms. However, HRH monitoring continues to present significant weaknesses in most countries [9].