The Economics Of Health Professional Education And Careers

The formation of health professionals is critical for the health system to function and to achieve its universal health coverage (UHC) goals, and this is well recognized by the majority of governments that plan to ensure enough training places and aim to regulate in order to ensure quality. But the importance of market forces is often overlooked, resulting in interventions and regulations that often fail to achieve their intended effects. This publication aims to inform the design of health professionals' education policies to better manage health labor market forces toward UHC. It documents what is known about the influence of market forces on the health-professional formation process. The report sought to answer the following questions: - What have been the large global and regional trends in the development of health professions? - How have these trends affected the career decisions of current and potential health professionals? - What is the evidence base on the value and effectiveness of health professional education of different types? - How has the market for health professional education evolved, and with what interrelationships with the health labor and health care markets? The contexts of the market for health professional training have been subject to important changes in recent decades, in particular: the growing extent of employment of mid-level cadres of health professionals; changes in technology and the associated growth of high skilled occupations; the increasing interconnectedness of national health systems through globalization, with its implications for international health professional mobility; and the greater complexity of the public-private mix in employment options. There is a need to ensure that market forces align with the intentions of planning and regulation and the needs of UHC goals. This publication provides recommendations to support the design of policies that help to achieve these.

An adequate, well-trained, and diverse health care workforce is essential for providing access to quality health care services. However, despite more than a decade of concerted global action to address the health workforce crisis, collective efforts are falling short in scaling up the supply of health workers. The resulting health workforce shortage affects people's access to quality health care around the globe. In October 2016, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop to explore resources for financing health professional education in high-, middle-, and low-income countries and innovative methods for financially supporting investments in health professional education within and across professions. Participants examined opportunities for matching population health needs with the right number, mix, distribution, and skill set of health workers while considering how supply and demand drive decisions within education and health. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

Introduction to Health Care & Careers provides students beginning their health care education with the fundamentals they need to develop their personal and professional skills, understand their chosen profession, and succeed in the world of health care. It meets the growing market demand for a book that gives the best of both worlds--skill development and career choice information.The text begins with today's health care system, health care economics, and law and ethics, providing important context for the personal, professional, and workplace skills that follow. From there, students move on to an overview of careers in health care and detailed profiles of the most in-demand professions. The book closes with brief chapters on anatomy and physiology to prepare students for the rest of their health care education. With its student friendly approach, Introduction to Health Care & Careersis the essential resource for introductory health care courses, striking the perfect balance between skill development and up-to-date career choice information-everything health care students need to succeed.

Srinath Reddy, Yasmine Rouai, Jeffrey L. Sturchio, Cicely Thomas, Tana Wuliji, Snow Yang, Pascal Zurn