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Determining staffing standards for primary care services using workload indicators of staffing needs in the Philippines

BACKGROUND: Health services cannot be delivered without an adequate, competent health workforce. Evidence suggests a direct relationship between density of health workforce and health outcomes. The Philippines is faced with health workforce challenges including shortages, inequitable distribution an...

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Autores principales: Aytona, Ma Graziella, Politico, Mary Ruth, McManus, Leah, Ronquillo, Kenneth, Okech, Mollent
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8796386/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35090487
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12960-021-00670-4
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author Aytona, Ma Graziella
Politico, Mary Ruth
McManus, Leah
Ronquillo, Kenneth
Okech, Mollent
author_facet Aytona, Ma Graziella
Politico, Mary Ruth
McManus, Leah
Ronquillo, Kenneth
Okech, Mollent
author_sort Aytona, Ma Graziella
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Health services cannot be delivered without an adequate, competent health workforce. Evidence suggests a direct relationship between density of health workforce and health outcomes. The Philippines is faced with health workforce challenges including shortages, inequitable distribution and inadequate skill mix which hinder health service delivery. Evidence-based workforce planning is, therefore, critical to achieve universal health care. METHODS: The Philippines adopted the World Health Organization’s workload indicators of staffing need methodology. Using a multistage sampling method, nine regions with poor health indicators in tuberculosis, family planning, and maternal child health were identified. Physicians, nurses, midwives, and medical technologists were prioritized in the study from 89 primary care health facilities (barangay health stations, rural health units, and city health offices). Data was collected using in-depth interviews, document reviews, observations, and field visits. The workload indicators of staffing need software were used for data analysis to determine staffing requirements and analyse workforce pressure. RESULTS: The study showed varied results in terms of staffing requirements and workload pressure across cadres and facility types. Some health facilities exhibited staff shortages and high workload pressure. Out of the 40 rural health units and city health offices, only three had the required physicians needed and 22 facilities had a shortage of physicians working under high workload pressure. Other facilities had excess staff compared to the calculated requirements. Nurses at the rural health units showed high workload pressure. Ten rural health units had no medical technologists. Midwives at barangay health stations exhibited extremely low workload pressures. CONCLUSION: The study identifies the need for the Philippine Health System, both through the Department of Health and the local governments to efficiently optimize the available health workers by revising the services offered at the primary health care facilities. The results provide evidence for staffing requirements at various levels of care based on workloads, scope of practice and time taken to undertake specific tasks at the barangay health stations, rural health units and city health offices to be integrated into the human resources for health management systems.
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spelling pubmed-87963862022-02-03 Determining staffing standards for primary care services using workload indicators of staffing needs in the Philippines Aytona, Ma Graziella Politico, Mary Ruth McManus, Leah Ronquillo, Kenneth Okech, Mollent Hum Resour Health Case Study BACKGROUND: Health services cannot be delivered without an adequate, competent health workforce. Evidence suggests a direct relationship between density of health workforce and health outcomes. The Philippines is faced with health workforce challenges including shortages, inequitable distribution and inadequate skill mix which hinder health service delivery. Evidence-based workforce planning is, therefore, critical to achieve universal health care. METHODS: The Philippines adopted the World Health Organization’s workload indicators of staffing need methodology. Using a multistage sampling method, nine regions with poor health indicators in tuberculosis, family planning, and maternal child health were identified. Physicians, nurses, midwives, and medical technologists were prioritized in the study from 89 primary care health facilities (barangay health stations, rural health units, and city health offices). Data was collected using in-depth interviews, document reviews, observations, and field visits. The workload indicators of staffing need software were used for data analysis to determine staffing requirements and analyse workforce pressure. RESULTS: The study showed varied results in terms of staffing requirements and workload pressure across cadres and facility types. Some health facilities exhibited staff shortages and high workload pressure. Out of the 40 rural health units and city health offices, only three had the required physicians needed and 22 facilities had a shortage of physicians working under high workload pressure. Other facilities had excess staff compared to the calculated requirements. Nurses at the rural health units showed high workload pressure. Ten rural health units had no medical technologists. Midwives at barangay health stations exhibited extremely low workload pressures. CONCLUSION: The study identifies the need for the Philippine Health System, both through the Department of Health and the local governments to efficiently optimize the available health workers by revising the services offered at the primary health care facilities. The results provide evidence for staffing requirements at various levels of care based on workloads, scope of practice and time taken to undertake specific tasks at the barangay health stations, rural health units and city health offices to be integrated into the human resources for health management systems. BioMed Central 2022-01-28 /pmc/articles/PMC8796386/ /pubmed/35090487 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12960-021-00670-4 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Case Study
Aytona, Ma Graziella
Politico, Mary Ruth
McManus, Leah
Ronquillo, Kenneth
Okech, Mollent
Determining staffing standards for primary care services using workload indicators of staffing needs in the Philippines
title Determining staffing standards for primary care services using workload indicators of staffing needs in the Philippines
title_full Determining staffing standards for primary care services using workload indicators of staffing needs in the Philippines
title_fullStr Determining staffing standards for primary care services using workload indicators of staffing needs in the Philippines
title_full_unstemmed Determining staffing standards for primary care services using workload indicators of staffing needs in the Philippines
title_short Determining staffing standards for primary care services using workload indicators of staffing needs in the Philippines
title_sort determining staffing standards for primary care services using workload indicators of staffing needs in the philippines
topic Case Study
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8796386/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35090487
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12960-021-00670-4
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