Report of the First Meeting of the Health Workforce Information Reference Group (HIRG)
Montreux, Switzerland, 10–12 March 2010
The meeting was jointly convened by the World Health Organization’s Department of Human Resources for Health, the Global Health Workforce Alliance and the Health Metrics Network, who have called for the establishment of a Health Workforce Information Reference Group (HIRG).
The aim of this first meeting of HIRG members and stakeholders was to initiate discussion on how to promote a coordinated, harmonized and standardized approach to strengthening country health workforce information and monitoring systems to support policy, planning and research.
The meeting concentrated on building on evidence obtained and lessons learnt in order to strengthen health workforce information systems, focusing on the validity, sharing and use of different sources of data on human resources for health (HRH); the challenges of information systems strengthening from governance, human resource capacity and technical perspectives; and partnership opportunities for developing and implementing a global strategy for strengthening country information systems.