Methodological issues in estimating and forecasting health manpower requirement

Abstract

Human resource is one of the most important components of health systems. Support for human resources planning for health ranks low on the health policy agenda of many national governments and international agencies. The aim of this study is to present various existing methodologies for estimating the health manpower requirement and forecasting approaches and to discuss some of the methodological challenges, their potential advantages, limitations and indications for their use. The most common approaches which were used for estimating man power requirement are health needs based, demand based, service targets based and health manpower to population ratio. These approaches use different assumptions and require distinct data sets for estimating requirement of human resource for health. Depending on need, health planners have modified four basic methods described above, and developed an alternative approaches for estimating as well as forecasting health manpower requirement and some of them have been discussed in details. Estimating the requirement and forecasting the health manpower is the most difficult but essential task for planners. Any assessment of the optimal number of health manpower, regardless of the specific method used, is bound to have a large range of uncertainty. Hence, any country considering requirement and forecasting of health manpower can deviate from intentions in either direction. The main concern must be to have the right number and appropriate mix and distribution of health manpower to provide quality health care service to achieve positive health outcomes.

Advancing the Population Needs-Based Health Workforce Planning Methodology: A Simulation Tool for Country Application

“…The well-acknowledged limitation of the needs-based workforce planning approach is its relatively intense data requirements [ 21 , 29 ] and lack of end-user tools [ 32 ], especially for settings where there is limited analytic capability. The present model partly addresses the latter but also requires extensive data on population size, demographic characteristics, the range of disease burden, health workforce absences and service delivery standards as well as data on the existing stock of health professionals, attrition rates, annual enrolments, pass rates and labour participation rates.…”

“…Some are based on the observed levels of health service utilisation (service demand); health services targets; number and size of health facilities (health facilities staffing norms); simple population ratios; and population health needs (or epidemiological approach). Several texts examine each of these approaches in depth [see, for example, [ 14 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 ]]. Although each method has its merits and downsides, and none has been explicitly shown to be superior in all contexts, the needs-based approach to health workforce planning has a strong instinctive appeal in line with the UHC efforts.…”

Health Service Activity Standards and Standard Workloads for Primary Healthcare in Ghana: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Health Professionals

“…Three broad approaches, population ratios, service demand/utilisation-based, and population needs-based approaches, have been used in planning the health workforce. Underlying each of these approaches is an explicit (as in needs-based and utilisation-based approaches) or implicit (as in population ratios) assumption about some measures of health worker productivity [ 3 , 4 ]. The Workload Indicators of Staffing Needs (WISN) tool, which is part of the service demand/utilisation-based approaches, is developed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and widely used [ 5 , 6 , 7 ].…”

Forecast of Healthcare Facilities and Health Workforce Requirements for the Public Sector in Ghana, 2016–2026

“…The process of HRHP involves determining and putting in place strategies to obtaining the required number of HWF with the right skills and competency; and their appropriate deployment to deliver timely and affordable services that address population health needs. 5,6 HWF forecasting is one of the initial elements of a broader HRHP. 7 It encompasses taking stock of available HWF, and estimating current and future HWF needed and comparing with the expected supply.…”

“…Commonly used approaches to HWF demand side forecasting include population health needs or epidemiological approach; service demand or utilisation approach; service targets approach; staff-to-population ratios approach; econometrics approach; and health service development analysis (HeSDA)/staffing standards (also known as facility-based) approach. 2,4,6,9,10 A comprehensive description of these approaches, including their advantages and disadvantages abounds in the literature. 2,7,11 These models tend to differ in their level of transparency, data requirements and outputs.…”