Impact of COVID-19 on health workforce policy
Project Details
The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of a competent and adequate health workforce (HWF) with the ability to flexibly and promptly adapt to surge needs for healthcare brought on by a disaster or a pandemic.
In their response to the pandemic, countries in the Western Pacific Region (WPR) have made innovative policy decisions to address the workforce surge needs, such as dynamic redeployment across provinces in the country, early deployment of medical professionals under training, task-shifting to finetune the requirement and the available resources.
It is important to document these approaches not only for building more resilient health systems prepared for future health emergencies, but also for strengthening the health workforce in line with changing population needs.
Our research will document the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the HWF in the WPR and explore the approaches taken to meet surge capacity needs of the HWF in fighting the pandemic with a view to provide recommendations for building a more resilient HWF in the region.
Researchers
Funding
The project is funded by WHO Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO)