Background Health services cannot be delivered without an adequate, competent health workforce. Evidence suggests a direct relationship between density of health workforce and health outcomes. The Philippines is faced with health workforce challenges including shortages, inequitable distribution and inadequate skill mix which hinder health service delivery. Evidence-based workforce planning is, therefore, critical to achieve universal health care. Methods The Philippines adopted the World Health Organization’s workload indicators of staffing need methodology. Using a multistage sampling method, nine regions with poor health indicators in tuberculosis, family planning, and maternal child health were identified. Physicians, nurses, midwives, and medical technologists were prioritized in the study from 89 primary care health facilities (barangay health stations, rural health units, and city health offices). Data was collected using in-depth interviews, document reviews, observations, and field visits. The workload indicators of staffing need software were used for data analysis to determine staffing requirements and analyse workforce pressure. Results The study showed varied results in terms of staffing requirements and workload pressure across cadres and facility types. Some health facilities exhibited staff shortages and high workload pressure. Out of the 40 rural health units and city health offices, only three had the required physicians needed and 22 facilities had a shortage of physicians working under high workload pressure. Other facilities had excess staff compared to the calculated requirements. Nurses at the rural health units showed high workload pressure. Ten rural health units had no medical technologists. Midwives at barangay health stations exhibited extremely low workload pressures. Conclusion The study identifies the need for the Philippine Health System, both through the Department of Health and the local governments to efficiently optimize the available health workers by revising the services offered at the primary health care facilities. The results provide evidence for staffing requirements at various levels of care based on workloads, scope of practice and time taken to undertake specific tasks at the barangay health stations, rural health units and city health offices to be integrated into the human resources for health management systems.

Background Papua New Guinea has seen some improvements in health indicators over the past years, but the pace of improvements is not as robust as expected. The Health Services Plan for Braun District Hospital redevelopment identified the importance of reflecting the hospital’s role in the broader health system, particularly in upgrading the services to service a bigger population. In August 2020, the hospital was upgraded from a health centre—level 3 to a district hospital level 4. The need for assessing human resources for health requirements for this level of care was thus necessary. Methods The National Department of Health approved the use of the workload indicators of staffing need as the best tool to support in estimating staff requirements for the newly upgraded hospital. The focus was on clinical and non-clinical staff. Using already developed workload components and activity standards by the expert working groups for level 4 facilities, we visited the facility and collected data through interviews with the Lutheran Health Services representative, hospital management and staff. The technical task force reviewed daily registers, monthly reports and the data in the electronic national health information systems. The information collected was analysed using the workload indicators of staffing need software and interpreted. Results There were staffing shortages among the clinical staff like the medical officers, nursing officers, health extension officers, pharmacists, radiology staff unit and in the laboratory staff. Shortages among the non-clinical staff were recorded by the cashiers, security officers, drivers and boat skippers. The results showed that the facility lacks a medical laboratory technologist, pharmacists and a medical imaging technologist. The community health workers in this facility are utilized in all the areas where shortages are registered to multitask. Conclusion The results from this WISN study provide evidence for basing staffing decisions on. The WISN results from Braun District Hospital show that the facility requires a total of 33 inpatient nurses against the existing 21 inpatient nurses thus giving a staff gap of − 12 and a WISN ratio of 0.67. It is thus recommended that the hospital management prioritizes recruitment of nurses or if no resources, reassign one of the outpatient nurses to alleviate the pressure among the inpatient nurses or the extra theatre nurses to offer some services in the inpatient wards. WISN results can help managers make decisions such as change of health facility status from a health centre to a district hospital.

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Background Addressing the challenges of the health crisis requires collaboration by multiple sectors and stakeholders with a complementary role in a single platform that coordinates policy and programs relating to the health workforce for sustainability. Methods Information from purposefully selected stakeholders involved in human resources for health programs in two selected states of Nigeria was collected during a workshop attended by 60 participants drawn from government, multilateral agencies, the private sector, bilateral agencies, academia, professional associations, and regulatory bodies. Results Lessons learnt from Bauchi and Cross River states HRH platforms included successful joint planning and implementation human resources for health strategies that significantly mobilized resources and improved performance. Human resources for health coordination platforms with strong governance structures are sustainable. Conclusion The coordination platforms require governance structures for inter-sectoral coordination and collaboration. This enhances joint planning, implementation and monitoring of HRH activities.