Workforce

About: Workforce is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 32140 publications have been published within this topic receiving 449850 citations. The topic is also known as: labour force & labor force.

Nurses' Working Conditions: Implications for Infectious Disease

Abstract: Staffing patterns and nurses' working conditions are risk factors for healthcare-associated infections as well as occupational injuries and infections. Staffing shortages, especially of nurses, have been identified as one of the major factors expected to constrain hospitals' ability to deal with future outbreaks of emerging infections. These problems are compounded by a global nursing shortage. Understanding and improving nurses' working conditions can potentially decrease the incidence of many infectious diseases. Relevant research is reviewed, and policy options are discussed. The Institute of Medicine's report, To Err is Human, which spotlighted the problem of patient safety, reported that tens of thousands of Americans die each year as a result of human error in the delivery of health care (1). Authors of a more recent Institute of Medicine report, Keeping Patients Safe, Transforming the Work Environment of Nurses, concluded that nursing is inseparably linked to patient safety and emphasized that poor working conditions for nurses and inadequate nurse staffing levels increase the risk for errors (2). Nurse working conditions are related to patients' risk of healthcare-associated infections and occupational injuries and infections among staff (3). We discuss the nurse workforce, review research examining nursing as it relates to infectious disease, identify gaps in the literature, and discuss potential policy options. Although our focus is on the nursing workforce in the United States, international trends and comparisons are also discussed.

Optimizing health worker roles to improve access to key maternal and newborn health interventions through task shifting. WHO recommendations.

Abstract: 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. 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.

Functional flexibility and team performance

Abstract: This study deals with workforce flexibility defined in terms of 'multifunctionality' and 'redundancy'. These concepts refer, respectively, to the number of different tasks a worker has mastered and the number of workers that are qualified to do a specific task. A third factor to be considered is worker efficiency. These elements of workforce flexibility support a team of workers in dealing with absenteeism and a fluctuating mix in the demand of human resources. The main focus of this study is on the impact of the distribution of workforce flexibility among workers on team performance. In this study, team performance is measured as the shortage of labour capacity, the minimum time needed to perform all tasks (e.g. the timespan) and the total cumulative production time. Two extreme assignment methods, which include a linear goal-programming formulation that minimizes the shortage, makespan and production time, are used in a full orthogonal factorial experimental design (2.2.5.5). The MANOVA results show tha...

For public service or money: understanding geographical imbalances in the health workforce

Abstract: Geographical imbalances in the health workforce have been a consistent feature of nearly all health systems, especially in developing countries. The authors investigate the willingness to work in a rural area among final year nursing and medical students in Ethiopia. Analyzing data obtained from contingent valuation questions, they find that household consumption and the student's motivation to help the poor, which is their proxy for intrinsic motivation, are the main determinants of willingness to work in a rural area. The authors investigate who are willing to help the poor and find that women are significantly more likely to help than men. Other variables, including a rich set of psycho-social characteristics, are not significant. Finally, the authors carry out some simulations on how much it would cost to make the entire cohort of starting nurses and doctors choose to take up a rural post.

Myths and Counter-Myths: An Analysis of Part-Time Female Employees and Their Orientations to Work and Working Hours

Abstract: The nature and character of the part-time workforce has been at the forefront of recent controversies about women's employment. Drawing on new data on the characteristics, attitudes and preferences...