Improving the Global Health Workforce Crisis

Correspondence

Improving the global GHC fellows work for 1 year and are We thank Carrie Rubury, Jessica Mack, and co-funded with the partner organ- Gwen Hopkins for their valuable contribution in health workforce crisis: reviewing and providing data for this manuscript. isation, depending on the financing The statements in this publication do not refl ect the an evaluation of Global capacity of the partner organisation. policy of Stanford University, the Aspen Institute, Health Corps Throughout the fellowship, GHC Harvard University, or Brigham and Women’s invests heavily in learning and leader- Hospital. The health workforce crisis has ship development via a pre-fellowship Copyright © Gupta et al. Open Access article distributed under the terms of CC BY-NC-ND. contributed to many countries’ training session, quarterly retreats, inability to achieve the Millennium mentorship with global health leaders, *Rajesh Gupta, Barbara P Bush, Development Goals, and is likely and post-fellowship retreats and Jonny Dorsey, Emily Moore, to affect the ability to achieve the networking events. Cassia van der hoof Holstein, Sustainable Development Goals and From 2009 to 2015, GHC has placed Paul E Farmer universal health coverage.1,2 seven fellowship classes totalling [email protected] Solutions to the workforce crisis 584 fellows (from more than Stanford University, Freeman Spogli Institute for have mainly targeted service providers 5000 applicants) with 95 partner International Studies and Center for Innovation in Global Health, Stanford, CA, USA (RG); Global (physicians, nurses, etc) by either organis ations across seven countries: Health Corps, New York, NY, USA (BPB, EM); The improving the local and global supply of Burundi, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, Aspen Institute, Impact Careers Initiative, Aspen, these workers or reducing the workload USA, Tanzania, and Zambia. The CO, USA (JD); Partners In Health, Cambridge, MA, USA (CvdhH, PEF); Harvard Medical School, Global 3,4 burden through task-shifting. 2014–15 class represents 22 countries Health Delivery Partnership, Boston, MA, USA However, focusing on service providers of citizenship, an average age of (CvdhH); Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Division will not overcome crucial barriers in the 25·7 years, a 2:1 female-to-male of Global Health Equity, Boston, MA, USA (PEF); and Harvard Medical School, Department of Global implementation and scale-up of health ratio, and more than 45 disciplines Health and Social Medicine, Boston, MA, USA (PEF) services such as stockout of health including architecture, agriculture, 1 De Francisco Shapvalova N, Meguid T, commodities, ill-constructed facilities, communications, computer Campbell J. Health-care workers as agents of and outdated information systems. science, economics, engineering, sustainable development. Lancet Glob Health 2015; 3: e249–50. Global Health Corps (GHC) finance, supply chain optimisation, 2 Global Health Workforce Alliance. The Recife was launched with two goals: to management consulting, and Political Declaration on Human Resources for Health: renewed commitments towards immediately increase the supply of technology development. universal health coverage. http://www.who. leaders and managers with diverse Of the 2013–14 partners (n=47), int/workforcealliance/forum/2013/3gf_ skills, and to build a leadership 87% reported that having a fellow was fi naldeclaration/en/ (accessed May 15, 2015). 3 Narasimhan V, Brown H, Pablos-Mendez A, pipeline to ensure health equity. GHC “critical” or “contributed positively” et al. Responding to the global human recruits fellows and places them in to the success of the organisation, resource crisis. Lancet 2004; 363: 1469–72. selected global health service delivery 89% reported that their fellows met 4 Frenk J, Chen L, Bhutta ZA, et al. Health professionals for a new century: transforming organisations in sub-Saharan Africa or exceeded established work goals education to strengthen health systems in an and the USA. It identifies partner during the fellowship year, 85% interdependent world. Lancet 2010; 376: 1923–58. organisations that are interested in reported that the GHC co-fellow 5 Chen L, Evans T, Anand S, et al. Human hosting a team of two fellows. Partner model and quarterly retreats increased resources for health: overcoming the crisis. organisations identify a capacity gap in fellows’ effectiveness at their place- Lancet 2004; 364: 1984–90. their organisation and apply for a pair ment sites, and 75% would want GHC of fellows to fi ll it. Fellows are selected fellows again. on the basis of the relevant skills set Models such as GHC could off er the needed by partners for that fellowship opportunity to help to address the year and on their demonstration supply and skill-mix imbalance in the of GHC’s key leadership practices: global health workforce5 by aligning commitment to social justice, ability the specific problems plaguing to inspire and mobilise others, interest health systems with systems thinkers in collaborative work, willingness to who possess the needed skills and adapt and innovate, self-awareness leadership traits to address those and commitment to learning, and problems. As health systems have demonstration of achieving results. A advanced to encompass a range of team of fellows is created by selecting disciplines, the approach to human at least one fellow from the partner resources for health should include organisation’s country and at least one more effort to include a greater fellow from other countries. diversity of talented young leaders.