Health workforce response to Covid‐19: What pandemic preparedness planning and action at the federal and state levels in Germany?

Abstract

Introduction:The Covid-19 pandemic has required countries to prepare their health workforce for a rapid increase of patients. This research aims to analyse the planning and health workforce policies in Germany, a country with a largely decentralised workforce governance mechanism. Methods: Systematic search between 18 and 31 May 2020 at federal and 16 states on health workforce action and planning (websites of ministries of health, public health authorities), including pandemic preparedness plans and policies. The search followed World Health Organisation (WHO) Europe's health workforce guidance on Covid-19. Content analysis was performed, informed by the themes of WHO. Results: The pandemic preparedness plans consisted of no or limited information on how to expand and prepare the health workforce during pandemics. The 16 states varied considerably regarding implementing strategies to expand health workforce capacities. Only one state adopted a policy on task-shifting despite a federal law on task-shifting during pandemics. Conclusions: Planning on the health workforce, its capacity and skill-mix during pandemics was limited in the pandemic This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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