HRIS Strengthening Sessions At Global Health Council: Good Data, Informed Decisions

Dr. Pamela McQuide will share IntraHealth’s experience in strengthening human resources information systems (HRIS) during a panel session at the 36th International Conference on Global Health on May 29, 2:30–4:15, in Washington, DC. The panel, Health Workforce: Addressing the Crisis, will be moderated by IntraHealth’s Anne Wilson, director of the Capacity Project.

Doctors, nurses and other health professionals form the backbone of a country's health system, yet many developing countries lack adequate information regarding training, licensing, registration and deployment—mainly due to the lack of reliable, current and easily accessible workforce data systems. The IntraHealth-led Capacity Project developed a suite of free, Open Source software (iHRIS) to help countries plan and manage their health workforce.

In Uganda, the Project installed a certification and licensing information system at four health professional councils and a human resources management system at the Ministry of Health. Data in these systems identify training, registration and deployment information about health workers by demographic variables, districts, categories of health workers and health worker positions. Data are analyzed with HRIS report functions and geographical mapping tools, and several data quality measures are used to validate data accuracy and ensure data confidentiality.

In Uganda, HRIS data:

  • Revealed a significant gap between the number of nurses and midwives who are trained and those who receive licensure

  • Are now influencing funding for pre-service education and workforce projections

  • Are enabling the Ministry of Health to hire health workers strategically and ensure that they are in good standing with their regulatory authority, thereby strengthening the quality of the workforce

  • Are contributing to a national biannual report on human resources for health.

McQuide will discuss the process of identifying country-level needs for HRIS. She will also describe key features of a sustainable HRIS and discuss uses of HRIS to improve human resources management, planning and policy formation.

McQuide, RN, PhD, is a health services researcher with over 13 years of international experience. She is senior health workforce and policy advisor with the Capacity Project.

A full list of IntraHealth’s activities at the 36th International Conference on Global Health is available here.

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