Leveraging Digital Solutions for Human Resources for Health: Strengthening Health Systems through Digital Transformation

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August 2024

©UNICEF/UN0236705/Viet Hung

Agenda

• The Challenge: Human Resource of Health for Children

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• Digital Health Solutions for HRH

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• UNICEF Comparative Advantage

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The Challenge

©UNICEF/UN0236705/Viet Hung

The Challenge

• A PHC-oriented health system integrates delivery of quality essential health services, community engagement and multi-sectoral policies and actions, and it has a constitutive commitment to human rights, gender equality, and equity. Health workforce is a priority to expand PHC.

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• Growing international migration, recently accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, may lead to increasing vulnerabilities within countries already suffering from low health workforce densities. In 2022, approximately 15% of HWs globally were working outside their country of birth or first professional qualification.

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• Women comprise 67% of the global health workforce and in most countries the health sector is characterized by strong gender segregation. Gender gaps are higher than in many other sectors and include a 24% gender pay gap.

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© UNICEF/UNI125796/Nesbitt

©UNICEF/UN0236705/Viet Hung

Landscape Analysis of Global HRH Investments

• Inadequate health workforce diversity, unoptimized allocation by geographic population coverage, insufficient training and remuneration, and limited support and protection reduce health system capacity to equitably maintain health service delivery

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• HRH investments are often highly fragmented and stop-gap, perpetuating financial incentives (i.e. per diems) and are failing to support more meaningful country-led strategic and sustainable HRH planning and costing

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Estimated Annual HRH Investments by key partners (USD millions) 

*Conducted by Chemonics 

HRH2030 Health Worker Life Cycle Approach

Digital Solutions for HRH

The Challenge

Build: Global Competency Frameworks

• Aligning health worker training with globally recognized competency standards

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• Engagement in global initiatives such as:
• WHO Digital Health Competency Framework

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• WHO CHW Competencey Framework and Curiccula Guide

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• Potetial Impact: ensuring that health workers are equipped with the essential skills and knowledge to provide high-quality care

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The Challenge

Build: Digital Literacy Training

• Building health worker competences in computer literacy, ICT literacy, information literacy and media literacy

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• UNICEF Digital Literacy Toolkit:
• Mission: Build capacity of all cadres of health workers to use digital tools to support either the management or delivery of health care, in particular, at the community level and in emergencies​

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• Toolkit consists of 1) assessment for a baseline level and 2)​ course content on digital literacy

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• Potetial Impact: ensuring health workers are comfortable and proficient in using digital platforms, given the digital transformation of the health sector and the rapid proliferation of the use of digital devices, platforms, and tools across health, including for all cadres of health workers​

Manage: Health Worker Registries

• A standards based-digital registry that centralizes data on health worker qualifications, locations, and availability, reducing the number of ghost workers

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• Note: this is distinct from a simple Excel based list due to functional requirements such as interoperability, data quality, and practical usability for health system planning and management

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Manage: Health Worker Registries

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• Potential Impact: improved tracking of health worker deployment, better workforce planning, greater availability of resources, and resource allocation

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• Global Good: iHRIS
• Global Goods are open-source, adaptable software and services that can be easily adpated and contextualized based on country needs�Global Goods have been vetted against global standards, architecture, and best practices

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Manage: Remote Health Worker Trainings

• Health content digitized in various formats (audio, text, multimedia) and uploaded onto a digital platform
• Integrated Voice Response (IVR)
• SMS
• Chatbots through Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Viber ​
• ​Moodle
• Internet of Good Things

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• Potential Impact: enabling flexible, continuous learning for health workers, especially in remote areas, without taking health workers away from health centers

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Manage: Learning and Performance Management

• Any strategy that supports a health worker to improve and maintain their performance at the highest quality. Health worker performance is defined as how well they adhere to national guidelines or otherwise work in ways that help achieve programmatic objectives

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• Potential Impact: improved and sustained health worker performance

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Optimize: Digital Payment Platforms

• Digital platforms developed multisectorally for timely and transparent payment

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• Potential Impact: increased retention and motivation, strengthened digital public infrastructure delivering multisectoral benefits

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• Ongoing exploration of use cases of digital payment platforms

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Payment

Completed

UNICEF’s Role in HRH

UNICEF Role in the HRH Landscape

• Global Engagement
• Convening partners around a common approach to integrating digital solutions into HRH systems
• Inform global guidance to transition from a one-size-fits-all approach to precision health worker support, anchored in a learning and performance management approach

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• Provide TA to countries with strategic and sustainable HRH planning, costing and architecture, including DH interventions
• Anchoring digital HRH interventions in health sector strategies
• i.e. linking the HRH strategy with the DH strategy

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• Addressing barriers to scaling and sustainaibility

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UNICEF Role in the HRH Landscape

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• Support standardized competency based packages
• i.e. CHWs provided a standardized competency framework and trained on a comprehensive health package
• Ensure packages are developed through an equity, gender, and child rights lens

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• Shift away from a culture of per diems and in-person trainings being the sole invesment

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Thank you!�Questions?

© UNICEF/UN0399458/Bukhari