Lessons learned from the history of postgraduate medical training in Japan: from disease-centred care to patient-centred care in an aging society.

BACKGROUND: Health workers, the core of health service delivery and a key driver of progress towards universal health coverage, must be available in sufficient numbers and distributed fairly to serve the entire population. In addition, the planning and management of the health workforce must be responsive to the changing needs of society, including changes in age structure and epidemiology. Considering these issues, this paper examines in historical perspective the evolution of postgraduate medical training and practice in Japan, from the late nineteenth century to the present. MAIN TEXT: When the first medical schools were established in the country towards the end of the nineteenth century, Japan was a largely agrarian society, with a population of about 30 million and an average life expectancy of 30-40 years. During the twentieth century, life expectancy and the national population continued to increase in a context of rapid economic growth. Since the 1980s, another demographic transition has occurred: low fertility rates and an aging society. As a result, the inputs and skills required from health professionals have changed considerably over time, posing new challenges to the national health sector and the management of human resources for health. CONCLUSIONS: The case of Japan offers valuable lessons for other countries experiencing a rapid epidemiological and demographic transition. To provide medical care that meets health priorities in the communities, we must consider not only the training of specialists, but also ensure the availability of a large cadre of physicians who possess basic skills and can provide patient-centred care. Furthermore, the Japanese experience shows that a highly hierarchical system and organisational culture are ill-suited to respond quickly to the changing demands of society.

For more than money: willingness of health professionals to stay in remote Senegal.

BACKGROUND: Poor distribution of already inadequate numbers of health professionals seriously constrains equitable access to health services in low- and middle-income countries. The Senegalese Government is currently developing policy to encourage health professionals to remain in areas defined as 'difficult'. Understanding health professional's preferences is crucial for this policy development. METHODS: Working with the Senegalese Government, a choice experiment (CE) was developed to elicit the job preferences of physicians and non-physicians. Attributes were defined using a novel mixed-methods approach, combining interviews and best-worst scaling (Case 1). Six attributes were categorised as 'individual (extrinsic) incentive' attributes ('type of contract', 'provision of training opportunities', 'provision of an allowance' and 'provision of accommodation') or 'functioning health system' attributes ('availability of basic equipment in health facilities' and 'provision of supportive supervision by health administrators'). Using face-to-face interviews, the CE was administered to 55 physicians (3909 observations) and 246 non-physicians (17 961 observations) randomly selected from those working in eight 'difficult' regions in Senegal. Conditional logit was used to analyse responses. This is the first CE to both explore the impact of contract type on rural retention and to estimate value of attributes in terms of willingness to stay (WTS) in current rural post. RESULTS: For both physicians and non-physicians, a permanent contract is the most important determinant of rural job retention, followed by availability of equipment and provision of training opportunities. Retention probabilities suggest that policy reform affecting only a single attribute is unlikely to encourage health professionals to remain in 'difficult' regions. The relative importance of an allowance is low; however, the level of such financial incentives requires further investigation. CONCLUSION: Contract type is a key factor impacting on retention. This has led the Senegalese Health Ministry to introduce a new rural assignment policy that recruits permanent staff from the pool of annually contracted healthcare professionals on the condition that they take up rural posts. While this is a useful policy development, further efforts to retain rural health workers, considering both personal incentives and the functioning of health systems, are necessary to ensure health worker numbers are adequate to meet the needs of rural communities.

Comparison of the clinical competency of nurses trained in competency-based and object-based approaches in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: A cross-sectional study.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the object-based approach (OBA) still remains mainstream in the basic nursing education program, despite the intention of the Ministry of Public Health to expand the competency-based approach (CBA) nationwide. This study aimed to compare the clinical competency of nurses trained with CBA and OBA. A cross-sectional, mixed study was conducted. We developed a self-assessment questionnaire consisting of an individual demographic information, a clinical competency assessment scale and the General Self-efficacy Scale. Nurses trained with CBA or OBA and currently working in health facilities with two to five years of clinical experience were purposively selected from ten cities across nine provinces in the DRC. We also conducted key informant interviews with the clinical supervisors at health facilities. In a comparison of 160 nurses trained with CBA and 153 with OBA, 3 competency domains ("establishing professional communication", "making decisions about health problems", and "performing nursing interventions") of the 5 domains required for nurses had significantly higher scores in the CBA group. The key informant interviews supported these results while revealing various issues in the basic nursing education program. The results support the strategic direction of the Ministry of Public Health in the DRC to expand CBA. Collaboration among education institutions, health facilities, and administrative bodies is crucial for clinical nurses to fully engage their competencies for the population. Other low- and middle-income countries with scarce resources can refer to the developed and implemented competency assessment method applied in this study.

The Role of a Network of Human Resources for Health Managers in Supporting Leadership for Health Systems Strengthening in Francophone African Countries.

This article presents the Vision Tokyo 2010 Network, a unique model of peer learning and information sharing among human resources for health (HRH) managers in Francophone African countries. It describes the network's origins, achievements, and factors underlying its success. The network's origins lie in an overseas training program in Tokyo between 2010 and 2014. Participants included directors and heads of HRH management departments at federal and provincial levels across nine Francophone African countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Niger, Mali, Senegal, and Togo. The network itself was established in 2012 based on the common strategic vision (Vision Tokyo 2010) developed during the training program, with an objective of tackling major problems to improve the performance of human resource development systems in the health systems of participants' countries. Some of the main outcomes of the network, demonstrated during the Ebola outbreak include: improved use of human resource information systems in Senegal established as a result of peer learning within the network and technical cooperation between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Côte d'Ivoire to develop standard operational procedures and to train health workers in the management of Ebola. Having a common strategic vision and contextualized framework-African house of solidarity-as a symbol for HRH system development, strong ownership by core members, participatory processes, a positive peer learning environment, and coaching-style support by partners were key elements of success in this initiative. The biggest challenge for this network thus far has been financial sustainability. However, steps are being taken to demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of networks such as these in order to garner further support from partners to invest in networked approaches rather than siloed, country-specific programs.