Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Meeting the health care needs of their populations is a central objective of health care systems in most countries. However, health care system planners in many countries do not have the technical training to plan and organize health care services - or the health workforces who provide those services - based on their populations' needs. The purpose of this session is to build participants' capacity for understanding and applying population needs-based approaches for health system and workforce planning. Using a hands-on approach, the participants of this session will learn about needs-based health systems and workforce planning approaches and their applicability to building a health system that is responsive and sustainable. Equipped with this new information as well as their own experiences, participants will strategize around innovative ways of using current and/or new approaches to 1) plan for their countries' health services and health workforces based on the health care needs of their populations; 2) determine how issues like migration might affect the availability of or requirements for their countries' health care services and health workforces; and 3) strengthen their countries' health and social data/information systems to support this type of improved planning process.