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Introduction

 

iHRIS Plan is a software program designed to support health workforce planners and decision makers in planning for their health workforce needs in developing country settings. The software enables planners and decision makers to evaluate their current and future human resources needs by cadre and then compare those needs to available health workers. The software graphically models available workers and workforce needs over time, enabling the user to visually assess the gap between them. The user may define and test various interventions -- or changes to the health workforce pool -- to try to close the gap between actual and required resources, and see the results of those interventions as they are dynamically calculated. In addition, tabular reports can be produced projecting actual numbers as well as health worker costs.

 

Using iHRIS Plan, workforce planners and decision makers can understand what will happen if different actions are taken to influence the health workforce or if no action is taken. These projections will help them prioritize policy changes by demonstrating which changes have greater or lesser impact on the health workforce. The projections will also alert planners to potential problems in the health workforce supply.

 

The workforce planning model helps workforce planners and policy makers answer the following types of questions:

 

 

 

 

iHRIS Plan is intended to support health workforce planners, either working in or consulting with a Ministry of Health, in projecting workforce needs and impacts of policy on the health workforce at the national level, and presenting those projections to health policy and decision makers. iHRIS Plan will supply credible evidence to support health workforce planning and policy decisions. The goal is help decision makers focus on the path to take to achieve their envisioned outcome for the health workforce. These results should provide the basis for a short-term, national, strategic health workforce plan.