Abstract
BackgroundFor an effective health system, human resources for health (HRH) planning should be aligned with health system needs. To provide evidence-based information to support HRH plan and policy, we should develop strategies to quantify health workforce requirements and supply. The aim of this study is to project HRH requirements for the Thai health service system in 2026. HRH included in this study were doctors, dentists, nurses, pharmacists, medical technicians (MTs), physiotherapists (PTs), and Thai traditional medicine (TTM) practitioners.Methods and resultsThe study mainly relied on the secondary data in relation to service utilization and population projection together with expert opinions. Health demand method was employed to forecast the HRH requirements based on the forecasted service utilizations. The results were then converted into HRH requirements using the staffing norm and productivity. The HRH supply projection was based on the stock and flow approach in which current stock and the flow in and out were taken into account in the projection. The results showed that in 2026, nurses are likely to be in critical shortages. The supply of doctors, pharmacists, and PTs is likely to be surplus. The HRH requirements are likely to match with the supply in cases of dentists, MTs, and TTM practitioners.ConclusionIn 2026, the supply of key professionals is likely to be sufficient except nurses who will be in critical shortages. The health demand method, although facing some limitations, is useful to project HRH requirements in such a situation that people are accessible to health services and future service utilizations are closely linked to current utilization rates.
Highlights
Human resources for health (HRH) availability has improved in some countries
The method was considered appropriate as this study focused mainly on HRH requirements relating to service utilization at 3 health facility settings: primary, secondary, and tertiary health facilities
Challenges facing Thai health system including rapid increase of aging population, increase of people living with chronic conditions, and growing demand of services provided in home and community settings should be included in the projection to show the direction towards which the health service system and HRH situation may be heading
Summary
Human resources for health (HRH) availability has improved in some countries. Still, shortages, skill-mix imbalances, maldistribution, barriers to inter-professional collaboration, rural turn over, and limited availability of health workforce data persist in many countries [1]. The service target approach sets targets for specific services using current service provision, other factors, and expert opinions [4] This approach may be useful in planning critical health care services or service for specific population; the approach may depend on unreliable assumptions [4]. Taking all these aspects into consideration, this study employed health demand method to forecast HRH requirement for Thailand health service system because of the high health service coverage of Thailand health service [6] and the availability of administrative data system. HRH included in this study were doctors, dentists, nurses, pharmacists, medical technicians (MTs), physiotherapists (PTs), and Thai traditional medicine (TTM) practitioners
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