This project helps meet the needs of the health workforce by:
• Working to quickly hire and increase the total number of qualified health workers at facilities in Kenya’s North Eastern Province in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Pathfinder International.
• Providing and installing the iHRIS Suite—an Open Source software tool developed by IntraHealth that helps health sector managers assess staffing problems and design and evaluate effective solutions. The project trains local staff to use this data in decision-making and provides technical support for planning and for the hiring, tracking, and management of health workers at facilities in Kenya’s eight provincial centers.
• Developing a cost-effective text messaging system that allows the ministry to quickly send health workers important administrative and human resources-related updates.
• Working with the Ministry of Health to create a new performance appraisal system, including a toolkit that allows national and local health facility managers and supervisors to better evaluate themselves and the workers they supervise.
• Collaborating with the Ministry for the Development of Northern Kenya and Other Arid Lands to recruit more students into the health care field; provide scholarships for pre-service and in-service education to encourage recipients to seek employment (or remain employed) at health facilities in underserved areas; and offer more health workers distance learning and professional development opportunities
• Helping national and regional partners assess the current state of health training in Kenya and devise plans to improve training curricula and systems.
• Creating and supporting a Center for Excellence in Family Planning at the Kenya Medical Training College in Kitui to encourage high-quality teaching of family planning, as well as to improve the facilities and administration of the college and the quality of clinical practicals geared toward family planning.
