Title:	Human Resources for Health (HRH)
Keywords:	Planning and programming Management Leadership Human Resources
Country:	Netherlands
Institution:	The Netherlands - Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), Amsterdam
Course coordinator:	H. Coleman
Date start:	2025-03-24
Date end:	2025-04-08
About duration and dates:	Duration of the course is 2.5 weeks full time learning. Application deadline is 2 months before the start date of the course. If space is available and no visa required, students can apply until 4 weeks prior to the first course day.
Classification:	advanced optional
Mode of delivery:	Face to face
Course location: KIT Institute PO Box 95001, 1090 HA Amsterdam The Netherlands Tel: +31-20-5688256 Website: www.kit.nl tropEd representative: L. Gerstel (l.gerstel@kit.nl)
ECTS credit points:	3 ECTS credits
SIT: 84 SIT: 34 contact hours and 50 self-study hours.
Language:	English
Description: At the end of the module the participants should be able to: 1. Analyse various issues (such as governance, political economy gender inequalities, fiscal space) related to human resources in the health sector using a health labour market analysis 2. Discuss different strategies to assure sufficient and qualified staff are equitably distributed 3. Analyse organisational behaviour and discuss strategic options and leadership styles for change in a culturally sensitive manner 4. Critically assess training programmes for health workers and provide appropriate recommendations for improvement 5. Critically appraise staff performance, identify performance problems, and recommend appropriate solutions
Assessment Procedures: Assessment is summative, and will be one oral examination on Human Resources for Health (100%). The exam covers a selection of subjects taught during the course. Sample questions are provided beforehand. The oral examination will take place on the last day of the course. Students receive their marks within 3 weeks after the exam. This is followed by a plenary feedback session on the exam. The pass mark is 6/10. If students have a mark < 5,0, they can do a re-sit of the oral examination within one month after the exam. An example of an exam question is added at the end of this form.
Content: The following subjects are covered during the course: ● Introduction to Human Resources for Health ● Health labour market analysis ● Migration, retention, motivation and performance of health workers ● HRH strategic planning ● Governance and political economy analysis for HRH ● Digital health for HRH ● Gender and rights in HRH policy and practice ● Training and training needs assessment ● Personal leadership and organisational change ● HRH financing and fiscal space analysis
Methods: This module contains introductory lectures (10 hrs), group exercises (15 hrs), plenary discussions (4hrs), role play, (2 hrs) debate (2 hrs), and a journal club (1 hr).and self study (50 hrs) In all sessions, the focus is on exchanging experiences and putting these experiences in the context of global evidence and conceptual frameworks.
Prerequisites: ● Bachelor’s degree or equivalent academic training in either medicine or another field related to health care, such as health sciences, health economics, social sciences, or nursing ● A minimum of three years of health-related work experience in health systems, not limited to (organisation of) individual patient care ● English proficiency at the level of TOEFL 5.5 or IELTS 6.5 (certificate is not required) ● Computer and internet literacy; the participant should be able to use a computer access to wifi networks, and working-level understanding of Microsoft Office software (e.g. Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Adobe (PDF). Students will be introduced to the e-learning platform.
Attendance: Maximum 60 students; the number of tropEd students is not limited.
Selection: First come, first served
Fees: € 1,980 (tropEd € 1,782) € 1,584 (early bird fee if you pay more than 3 months in advance)
Scholarships: There are no current specific scholarships for this course, for latest updates see
Major changes since initial accreditation: Variation in teaching methods: We further reduced the required readings for each learning unit to align better with the estimated student investment time. We have included a teacher from Nigeria in line with decolonizing global health agenda, who is teaching online. Assessment: The written exam has been replaced by an oral exam on the last day of the course Alignment topics: We included a learning unit on digital health for HRH in this course. Telemedicine is an important development in the field of human resources of health that was still missing in our course. We have taken out the specific session on workload. As of 2025, this will be discussed as part of the HRH strategic planning session. The workload is only one of the data sources that can be used in planning next to process, stakeholder participation and more. We added Political Economy dynamics to the module as this is an important part of HRH challenges. Scheduling: We have increased the time from 2 to 2.5 weeks to be able to spread the workload and allow time for processing.
Student evaluation: Overall the students in the years 2016-2024 were positive about the objectives, topics and teaching methods. Points for improvement were: - the number of contact hours and sessions being quite a few for a two weeks course. It was suggested to extent from 2 to 3 weeks. We chose to extend to 2.5 weeks. - Provide more concrete examples from various countries by the facilitators.
Lessons learned: The module, its contents and teaching methods are appreciated while at the same time we needed to select specific content areas as HRH is a wide topic with a lot of sub-components. By introducing the health labour market model as the overarching model, KIT is better able to explain how the components we address during the module fit in the overall HRH model. The introduction of the module is always jointly developed with WHO in Geneva- this facilitates embedment of our module in the global thinking on HRH. Introducing at the start and summarizing at the end of the module and learning units are crucial components of a successful module. In line with the movement of decolonizing global health education and the developed online facilities for online teaching we involved more teachers from LMICs in our course and encourage them to share concrete country experiences.
tropEd accreditation: Accredited in Amsterdam, Jan 2003; reaccredited in Bordeaux, Jan 2007, in Lisbon, May 2012 and in EC TelCo, Dec 2016; Re-accredited EC Telco Nov 22, 2021. Reaccredited in Cuernavaca, in June 2024. Valid until June 2029.
Remarks: Key readings: • Sousa A, Scheffler R, Nyoni J & Boerma T. A. Comprehensive health labour market framework for universal health coverage. Bull WHO, Volume 91,Number 11, 2013, pp892-94 • Global strategy on human resources for health: Workforce 2030. World Health Organization 2016. • Campbell J, Buchan J, Cometto G,David B, Dussault G, Fogstad H, Fronteira I, Lozano R, Nyonator F, Pablos-Méndez A, Quain EE, Starrs A & Tangcharoensathienk V (2014) Human resources for health and universal health coverage: fostering equity and effective coverage • Boniol M, Kunjumen T, Nair TS, Siyam A, Campbell J, Diallo K The global health workforce stock and distribution in 2020 and 2030: a threat to equity and 'universal' health coverage? BMJ Global Health 2022;7: e009316
Email Address:	courses@kit.nl
Date Of Record Creation:	2012-01-19 02:32:38 (W3C-DTF)
Date Of Record Release:	2012-01-19 08:44:37 (W3C-DTF)
Date Record Checked:	2021-11-25 (W3C-DTF)
Date Last Modified:	2024-07-11 08:30:37 (W3C-DTF)