Health human resources
Health human resources (HHR) – also known as human resources for health (HRH) or health workforce – is defined as "all people engaged in actions whose primary intent is to enhance positive health outcomes", according to World Health Organization's World Health Report 2006. Human resources for health are identified as one of the six core building blocks of a health system. Human resources for health include physicians, nursing professionals, pharmacists, midwives, dentists, allied health professions, community health workers, social health workers and other health care providers, as well as health management and support functions personnels like cleaner, guard etc. who add important values as part of the wider health systems so that enhance the delivery of essential healthcare services effectively and efficiently. Effective health system functioning highly demand well trained health services managers, medical records and health information technicians, health economists, health supply chain managers, medical secretaries and others. The field of health human resources deals with issues such as workforce planning, merit based recruitment, onboarding, training and development, performance management, promotion, management, retention, human resources for health information management, and research on human resources for health care sector. In recent years, raising awareness of the critical role of HRH in strengthening health system performance and improving population health outcomes has placed the health workforce as one of the highest priorities of global health agenda. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates a shortage of almost 4.3 million physicians, midwives, nurses and support workers worldwide. The shortage is most severe in 57 of the poorest countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The situation was declared on World Health Day 2006 as a "health workforce crisis" – the result of decades of underinvestment in health worker education, training, wages, working environment and management.
