Skip to main content

Health Workforce Research - The Priority for the Next 25 Years

Greetings from Coimbra, Portugal where I am attending the World Health Organization's (WHO) meeting of the Nursing and Midwifery Collaborating Centers. The purpose of the WHO-CC for Nursing and Midwifery is to his network works toward the maximization of the contribution of nursing and midwifery in order to advance Health for All in partnership with WHO and its Member States, member centres, NGOs, and others interested in promoting the health of populations. The network carries out advocacy and evidence based policy activities within the framework of WHA resolutions and the WHO programme of Work. An impressive amount of work, research, and capacity building is completed by the Nursing & Midwifery centers.

 What's clear from this meeting is that the future of research in healthcare lies predominantly on the health workforce. We can develop lots of interventions, but if there are no health workers to implement them they will not matter nor be as effective as the randomized controlled trial proclaims them to be. If health care workers cannot get the supplies and medicines they need, they cannot be as effective in their roles and patient outcomes suffer. If management is poor, workers will leave their workplace or the professions all together.

WHO has made the healthcare workforce an essential part of achieving universal health care. In nursing, we have a major shortage of health services and workforce researchers. This kind of research looks at a variety of topics and is not all quantitative.  These can include but are not limited to:

  • Studying career trajectories and dynamics of healthcare professionals
  • Examining the link between the numbers and types (e.g. educational levels of staff) of healthcare professionals and patient outcomes (pick a disease or condition) in hospitals, primary care, home care, and long term care.
  • Developing organizational interventions to improve the quality of care provided and studying the impact on patient outcomes
  • Health workforce planning (national, regional, local)
  • Health labor market dynamics
  • Policy analyses of workforce policies
  • The impact of regulation, credentialing, and liscensure on the health workforce 

Health workforce research does require a PhD but there are a number of places around the world where you can study. If thinking about applying for a PhD to study health workforce, look for faculty members on the school's website that have a strong track record of scholarship in health services and workforce research. If we do not have more researchers in this field, the evidence-base and voices of nursing will not be able to effectively contribute to health policy that will help countries achieve universal health care.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is it time to get your PhD in Nursing or Midwifery?

 Over the years, I've written a lot about pursuing a PhD in nursing and I'm including midwives because we need more PhD prepared midwives too.  Getting a PhD is a great way to address the problems you've seen on the frontlines of COVID-19, another way to address the social injustices of racism and discrimination on health outcomes, and to make your voice heard by the decision-makers. A third of the 1% of nurses with PhDs will retire in the next five years so we need people to take their place. We cannot lose our voices in all the places where nurses and midwives with PhDs work. Here's a compilation of the posts I've written about getting a PhD and the things to think about as you figure out where you want to apply. PhD or DNP?   This is where many people start when trying to decide on their doctoral-level career advancement. This post has my two cents on the topic. Should you work as a nurse before getting a PhD?   There's a lot of opinions out there on this sub...
3 comments
Read more

The 32 Hour Work Week for Nurses

Sometimes it's nice to see research that confirms a hunch you've had for a few years.  A recent study in Health Affairs , one of the most influential health policy journals in the United States, looked at the effects of 12 hour shifts on patient satisfaction and nurse burnout rates. Turns out, results are not good.  The longer nurses worked in a day, the less satisfied patients were with the quality of care.  In addition, nurses working 12 hour shifts were more likely to become burnt out than those working fewer hours. On the overtime policy front, that's good news for nurses.  The study adds just one more reason why mandatory overtime is bad policy.  It should create incentive for staffing units appropriately and closer to the California standards. From another perspective, we know why nurses like 12 hour shifts.  Let's face it, 3 days a week of work and then a bunch of days off in a row, so many sometimes that you don't have to use vacation day...
Post a Comment
Read more

US Nurses: Vote Today!

Nurses: There is no excuse not to vote .   There is too much at stake this year that affects the health of our patients. Be a smart voter and choose five major issues that affect your job and your patients' ability to get care and services.  Take those five issues and make sure you study how candidates at all levels, from local representation through the president, match up with your perspectives. Voting because of a single issue or stance by a candidate is not good critical thinking.  The world is too complex for your vote to come down to one single thing. Finally, if you experience any voting issues, or are the subject of intimidation from other voters, poll watchers, or election site workers, please call 1-866-OUR -VOTE for legal assistance at no charge.
Post a Comment
Read more

Translate