Scaling-up nursing and medical education
Report on the WHO/PEPFAR planning meeting on scaling up nursing and medical education Geneva, 13-14 October 2009
The Human Resources for Health Department and PEPFAR convened a joint meeting that marked the beginning of a new WHO/PEPFAR collaboration for scaling up nursing and medical education in resource constrained countries. The goal of the collaboration is to support the new efforts of governments and development partners with sound policy and technical guidance and implementing mechanisms that will help scale up health care workers and specifically doctors and nurses.
This effort aims to help countries to build an expanded workforce of doctors and nurses that is stronger in numbers, sustainable, and with a greater capacity to serve the overall health needs of communities and improve population health outcomes. It envisages a process of policy development to link different sectors such as health, education, labour, finance in the effort to scale up doctors and nurses; it foresees growth and transformation of institutional and clinical capacity in accord to national HRH plans and specific country health needs; and it also places medical and nursing education in the context of the health system so that education, training, research, and service delivery work in synergy. The work aims also facilitate implementation from the start by strengthening country and regional technical partnerships to put into operation selected interventions in certain countries.
This work is building on the previous WHO/PEPFAR collaborations on Task Shifting and Positive Synergies and will involve a wide range of other partners including academic and training institutions from around the globe, professional associations, UN agencies, multi-lateral and bilateral development partners, civil society and implementers.
The activities part of this effort are:
- Development of evidence-based policy and technical guidance on transformative scale up of medical and nursing education through a process of consultation, documentation and endorsement by 2011.
- Technical partnership with countries and stakeholders to facilitate immediate interventions at country level and to prepare the ground for early implementation of the global guidance
Contact: Francesca Celletti