Leveraging information technology to bridge the health workforce gap

The International Telecommunication Union estimates that, in only four years (2007–2011), mobile broadband subscriptions in the developing world increased by more than tenfold: from 43 million to 458 million. Mobile de-vices and internet access are becoming increasingly necessary professional tools for health-care workers at all levels in developing countries. New fibre and wireless infrastructure, as well as the rapid growth of computer processing power, provide an unprecedented op-portunity to scale up health worker training and improve its quality, as well as to optimize health service delivery and strengthen health systems.Over the past 20 years, learning management systems have contributed greatly to the tremendous expansion of e-learning. The past five years have also seen an increase in massive open online courses. eHealth technologies, including electronic medical records, laboratory and pharmacy information systems, along with disease surveil-lance and supply chain information systems, are transforming health care. Mobile health (mHealth), which is the practice of medicine and public health supported by mobile devices, extends these systems to the most remote and inaccessible parts of the developing world. In addition, the same mobile devices used to optimize communica-tion and support front-line health-care workers can be used to deploy multi-media training programmes and clini -cal decision support tools. The social media and the development of com-munities of practice have yet to be fully mobilized to support health workforce capacity building. The use of the social media by health workers has several potential benefits. Some examples are crowdsourcing of educational content, translations and localization (i.e. ad-aptation of the content to a particular region), peer-to-peer learning, joint problem solving and reflective prac-tice. In addition, ICTs can strengthen communication between providers and patients, increase community support for health worker capacity building and heighten the demand for high-quality clinical services.E-learning tools can support cur-riculum development and course sched -uling and management in ways that are conducive to blended learning approaches and that take advantage of multiple learning environments. Such tools can also be linked with national health professional registration and licensure systems, as well as with health workforce planning, management and in-service training systems, to provide information and support to the health workforce throughout the health worker lifecycle. Following pre-service train-ing, ICTs can be used to optimize the work of a health-care provider – the use of electronic health records, clinical decision-making, supply chain manage -ment and service quality control are examples – and to facilitate mHealth communications, continuing education and the establishment of professional social networks.Training methods based on video conferencing, webcasting, recording, localization and playback of training can enable global access to the very best educators and are more cost-effective than standard face-to-face educational programmes. Interactive content pro-grammes that incorporate gaming and adaptive learning tools can also be used.