Workforce innovations for better performing health systems: Presentations available!

Numerous factors currently bring European countries to adapt their health services system to changing circumstances.  The ageing of populations comes with an increased prevalence of non-communicable and chronic diseases and of multi-morbidity. Technology, such as ehealth, mhealth, Big Data, robotics, offers new tools to health workers and changes how they perform their tasks and calls for new ways of delivering services. Users of services tend to be better informed and to want a greater say in how their health problems are managed. These and other factors are creating the need for a transformed health workforce. The division of tasks among the various categories of providers, and how these interact needs to be adapted. New competencies, and therefore new education strategies are also needed, just like improved working conditions. In a word, more of the same workforce is not the response that today’s and future needs require.

In many countries, the transformation of the health workforce to make it more performing and better prepared to strengthen health systems is already going on. There is much to be learned from innovative experiences in health workforce policy-making, governance, planning, education, skills-mix, regulation, management, and work arrangements. This conference was an opportunity to present and discuss the evidence on innovations that make the health workforce better fit-for-purpose in the context of an ageing Europe and have positive impacts on the availability, accessibility, affordability, acceptability and quality of health services.

See the Programme

See the Bionotes

See the Abstracts Book