Financing the Education of Health Workers: Gaining a Competitive Edge

This volume reviews the economic underpinnings (investment and financing) and institutional reforms needed to successfully scale up the education of health workers. In this regard, the book examines five major economic and institutional challenges that policy makers face: (1) governance of health education organizations and systems; (2) approaches to financing the education of health workers; (3) the special nature of capital investment in expanding the capacity of health education institutions; (4) public-private partnerships in health education; and (5) equity in accessing health education, with a special focus on issues that arise from private approaches to the education of health workers.

Much of the existing literature focuses on the quality and contents of training health workers, and very little has been written on the institutional dimension of financing their training and education. This book examines the complex institutional and financial models and approaches that can impact the demand and supply of health worker education programs around the world.

Building on the findings of the Independent Commission on the Education of Health Professionals for the 21st Century, which published on the foundations and the issues of global postsecondary professional education, this volume brings in new and in-depth aspects such as governance, capital investments, and the role of the private sector in the production of health professionals; thus allowing the reader to understand how the health worker education field has moved from theory to practice.

Readership: Healthcare policy makers, academics teaching health financing and pedagogy, undergraduate and graduate students of healthcare policy and finance.

"Technology is changing health care but the benefits will come from how health workers use it. It is their skills, wisdom, empathy and compassion that will make sure patients and populations benefit." -- Lord Nigel Crisp KCB, Member of British House of Lords, Former Chief Executive of British NHS

"Providing high quality of education programs for health workers is a central theme of the US$ 1 billion Health in Africa initiative that I manage at the World Bank/International Finance Corporation. The research done for this publication shows that delivering such programs are both affordable and feasible in low- and middle-income countries, not just in higher income contexts. Africa is in dire need of new and innovative approaches in education to offer to its youthful population, in order to reap the demographic dividends." -- Khama Rogo MD PhD, Head of Health in Africa Initiative, World Bank Group

Technology is changing health care but the benefits will come from how health workers use it. It is their skills, wisdom, empathy and compassion that will make sure patients and populations benefit." -- Lord Nigel Crisp KCB, Member of British House of Lords, Former Chief Executive of British NHS

"Providing high quality of education programs for health workers is a central theme of the US$ 1 billion Health in Africa initiative that I manage at the World Bank/International Finance Corporation. The research done for this publication shows that delivering such programs are both affordable and feasible in low- and middle-income countries, not just in higher income contexts. Africa is in dire need of new and innovative approaches in education to offer to its youthful population, in order to reap the demographic dividends." -- Khama Rogo MD PhD, Head of Health in Africa Initiative, World Bank Group