Scaling Up Health Workforce Education and Training: Guide for Applying the Bottlenecks and Best Buys Approach

"To achieve universal health coverage and better health outcomes, the world needs more health workers...Educating and training an ample supply of new health workers, though, is hindered by a limited number of schools and the scarcity of resources to scale up their efforts."
This guide outlines an approach created by CapacityPlus - the Bottlenecks and Best Buys Approach - to help health professional schools pinpoint the obstacles or bottlenecks to increasing the production of competent and qualified graduates and then to identify and select priority challenges that can be overcome through limited yet strategic investments.
"This guide draws from the CapacityPlus project's experience of adapting and applying the approach in more than 30 nursing, midwifery, medical, health assistant, and community health extension worker schools, both public and privately owned, in seven African countries." It is intended for (1) school leaders in both public and private educational institutions dealing with health professions, (2) representatives of national governmental organisations such as the Ministry of Health or Ministry of Education, (3) national and international technical agencies, regulatory bodies, or associations such as a nongovernmental organisation (NGO) focused on education or health, a health professional council or association, or associations of nursing or medical schools, and (4) donors and financing agencies interested in investing in health workforce education.
"The guide describes two general options for applying the approach: internally led by a school; or externally led by a governmental or technical agency. It identifies the stakeholders who should be involved, the steps in conducting a bottlenecks assessment, and a method for using the results of the assessment to identify and build consensus on the most effective and affordable actions, or best buys, for overcoming bottlenecks to scale-up. The guide also provides tools and examples for strategic steps in the approach, such as engaging stakeholders, conducting a situation analysis, defining the school's scale-up goal, leading group interviews, analyzing the results, and presenting the final bottlenecks and best buys report to external stakeholders and potential Target audience investors." The Annex section provides samples of all the forms, templates, and questionnaires used to implement the approach.