A demand approach health workforce planning in the Peruvian primary care setting

Health workforce planning seeks to align supplies of health workers with population health needs by using models. However, some of these models can be difficult to implement, requiring specialized skills, resources and data. This study presents a parsimonious demand approach staff requirement methodology developed by a middle-income health system that aims to overcome existing model barriers and offers a viable health workforce planning alternative for countries with limited health information systems.

The study is set in a sample of Peruvian capital's Primary Care clinics and models TB staffing requirements according to legislative requirements and treatment norms. It provides a step-by-step description of the method used to calculate presentation and staffing volumes and to identify the gaps.

The model's results indicate that the service demand for TB patient treatment types: bacilloscopic sample collection, evaluation, delivery and laboratory processing to have the highest volumes; and nurse and nurse technicians to have the largest service requirements - with the annual gap for Nurses found to be 94,687.8 h.

This model's frugal method and data requirements mean that managers and planners may be better able to apply staff requirement studies to improve their service planning, health workforce supply and health worker training policies.

Most middle-income health systems rely on the WHO Workload Indicators of Staffing Needs method for service gap determination; however, this model has been locally developed as a solution to counteract some of WISN's operational issues.