Abstract
Effective human resources for health (HRH) planning require evidence-based information to support the decision making. HRH requirement projection in line with desired health service system could therefore be compared with HRH supply projection in order to identify gaps. Gap analysis leads to the development of the HRH plan in order to solve those problems. HRH requirement projection could be carried out both at national level as well as at health facility level. The approaches used to forecast the HRH requirements at national level are: population ratio method, health needs method, health demand method, and service target method. Each approach has its strengths and limitations. At health facility level, the HRH forecast emphasizes on task and functional, skill mix, productivity, etc. Approaches used for the HRH projection include: skill mix, workload indicators of staffing need (WISN), task and functional analysis. Recommendations to strengthen HRH requirement projection to support effective HRH planning include: 1) HRH projection should be revised often to be in line with the changing context, 2) HRH information to support HRH projections should be updated, 3) HRH requirement projections should be done at national level as well as at facility level, 4) HRH requirement projections should not be done separately by each profession, but should be rather forecasted interrelated among health teams, 5) choosing appropriate method of HRH projection.
