A decision-making support tool for health systems which optimizes the allocation of health workers across health facilities nationally.
A health workforce planning and allocation tool which enables governments to finance and distribute health workers nationally, and within budgetary constraints.
There is a critical shortage of healthcare workers in sub-Saharan Africa. Tanzania is reported to have only 48% of the health workers it needs to adequately staff its health facilities. This poses a significant challenge for decision-makers who must make difficult choices about how to distribute limited healthcare roles and specialties where they can maximize benefits to patients.
Each year, Tanzania’s medical universities and training institutions graduate thousands of new health workers – from doctors and nurses, to lab technicians and medical assistants. These public-sector employees must be assigned to over 1,000 hospitals across the country. Data-driven decision-making is absolutely essential to ensure that Tanzania’s hospitals have the human resources needed tomeet patient care demands.
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In 2015, Touch developed technology to help the Government of Tanzania distribute thousands of healthcare workers across the national public health system, with the goal of making assignments based on available personnel, budgetary parameters, and the ability to impact the largest number of patients. In 2021, POA – an acronym for Prioritization and Optimization Analysis – was adopted as the national HRH planning strategy for Tanzania and since then has been used for planning and allocating health workers to all public primary care facilities in Tanzania, over 6,000 personnel annually.As a planning tool, POA has been used for a variety of unique contexts across Africa. Touch has worked with the governments of South Africa, Nigeria, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau over the past three years to deploy POA for specialized health workforce planning priorities, such as COVID response personnel, and health workers specialized in HIV/AIDS treatment and care.
In 2015, Touch developed technology to help the Government of Tanzania distribute thousands of healthcare workers across the national public health system, with the goal of making assignments based on available personnel, budgetary parameters, and the ability to impact the largest number of patients. In 2021, POA – an acronym for Prioritization and Optimization Analysis – was adopted as the national HRH planning strategy for Tanzania and since then has been used for planning and allocating health workers to all public primary care facilities in Tanzania, over 6,000 personnel annually.
As a planning tool, POA has been used for a variety of unique contexts across Africa. Touch has worked with the governments of South Africa, Nigeria, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau over the past three years to deploy POA for specialized health workforce planning priorities, such as COVID response personnel, and health workers specialized in HIV/AIDS treatment and care.