The World Health Organization’s recommendations on optimizing the roles of health workers aim to help address critical health workforce shortages that slow down progress towards the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). A more rational distribution of tasks and responsibilities among cadres of health workers can significantly improve both access and cost-effectiveness – for example by training and enabling ‘mid-level’ and ‘lay’ health workers to perform specific interventions otherwise provided only by cadres with longer (and sometimes more specialized) training.
These recommendations are intended for health policy-makers, managers and other stakeholders at a regional, national and international level. WHO hopes that countries will adapt and implement them to meet local needs. The recommendations were developed through a formal, structured process including a thorough review of available evidence. The process and the recommendations are described in the related documents.
This website presents the OptimizeMNH recommendations in an interactive format. Users can browse the recommendations by type (for example, whether WHO recommends the intervention, or recommends against the intervention) or by type of intervention (for example, whether the intervention is delivered during pregnancy or delivered after birth). For each recommendation, users can also obtain more information on the justification provided by WHO and can obtain the full text of the recommendation, including the evidence base and implementation considerations.
Link: Optimizing health worker roles to improve access to key maternal and newborn health interventions through task shifting: WHO rec
Resource Topic: CHW Role, Community Health Workers/Volunteers, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, Policy, Task shifting
Resource Type: Issue papers, Research
Year: 2012
Region:
Country: Global
Publisher May Restrict Access: No