Health workforce development planning in the Sultanate of Oman: a case study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Oman's recent experience in health workforce development may be viewed against the backdrop of the situation just three or four decades ago, when it had just a few physicians and nurses (mostly expatriate). All workforce categories in Oman have grown substantially over the last two decades. Increased self-reliance was achieved despite substantial growth in workforce stocks. Stocks of physicians and nurses grew significantly during 1985–2007. This development was the outcome of well-considered national policies and plans. This case outlines how Oman is continuing to turn around its excessive dependence on expatriate workforce through strategic workforce development planning.</p> <p>Case description</p> <p>The Sultanate's early development initiatives focused on building a strong health care infrastructure by importing workforce. However, the policy-makers stressed national workforce development for a sustainable future. Beginning with the formulation of a strategic health workforce development plan in 1991, the stage was set for adopting workforce planning as an essential strategy for sustainable health development and workforce self-reliance. Oman continued to develop its educational infrastructure, and began to produce as much workforce as possible, in order to meet health care demands and achieve workforce self-reliance.</p> <p>Other policy initiatives with a beneficial impact on Oman's workforce development scenario were: regionalization of nursing institutes, active collaboration with universities and overseas specialty boards, qualitative improvement of the education system, development of a strong continuing professional development system, efforts to improve workforce management, planned change management and needs-based micro/macro-level studies. Strong political will and bold policy initiatives, dedicated workforce planning and educational endeavours have all contributed to help Oman to develop its health workforce stocks and gain self-reliance.</p> <p>Discussion and evaluation</p> <p>Oman has successfully innovated workforce planning within a favorable policy environment. Its intensive and extensive workforce planning efforts, with the close involvement of policy-makers, educators and workforce managers, have ensured adequacy of suitable workforce in health institutions and its increased self-reliance in the health workforce.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Oman's experience in workforce planning and development presents an illustration of a country benefiting from successful application of workforce planning concepts and tools. Instead of being complacent about its achievements so far, every country needs to improve or sustain its planning efforts in this way, in order to circumvent the current workforce deficiencies and to further increase self-reliance and improve workforce efficiency and effectiveness.</p

4th Symposium on Patient Safety One Aim with Shared Responsibilities Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, Sultanate of Oman 2nd - 4th February 2009

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The Technical, Non-technical Issues and the Challenges of Migration to Free and Open Source Software

Abstract Interest has been raised over software that has been developed not by dedicated software companies but by groups of independent programmers with different level of experience who collaborate over the Internet and offer the fruits of their labor free. Open source software communities have successfully developed many software pieces and suggest Free Open Source Software (FOSS) as a solution for a lot of computing problems, although most computer users only use proprietary applications. Many proprietary software users claim that open source software invites problems, such as, generating software codes that could be vulnerable to hackers and prone to errors. This paper presents an overview of the real issues and challenges for the migration to free and open source software (FOSS) and suggests some important criteria for assessing migration issues and challenges. Migratory problems may be divided into technical and nontechnical issues and challenges. The technical issues and challenges include performance, technical infrastructure, usability, integrity, support availability, security, information flow control, data migration, flexibility and ease of use and management and maintenance of OSS, whereas the non-technical issues and challenges include organizational culture, human factors (staff skills) and legal issues

Population aging and long-term care policies in the Gulf region: a case study of Oman

Population aging is a phenomenon occurring across the globe including in countries traditionally exhibiting population dividends and “youth bulges.” The Gulf Corporation Council countries are no exception as they currently experience a process of population aging, albeit at a different stage from many developed countries. However, due to historically high fertility rates and fast-paced epidemiological transition, some of these countries will experience population aging at a higher pace than what has been observed in Europe and the United States. This article reviews recent developments in long-term care policies in the Gulf region with a focus on Oman as an example of a high-income Arab country that is experiencing population aging while still being governed by traditional family aged-care norms. Utilizing existing data and published research complemented by policy analysis and field visits, we analyze the process of population aging in Oman and neighboring countries and its policy implications

Immigrants and health system challenges to TB control in Oman

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>During the past three decades, Oman has made significant progress in controlling TB within it's borders. However, the national TB control program elimination target has yet to be reached. This study aims to explore the perceived roles played by the immigrant population and the private health sector in relation to TB control in Oman.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We conducted seventeen interviews with different health care providers. The verbatim transcripts were processed using content analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Three main themes emerged. Firstly the threat of repatriation faced by underprivileged expatriates, secondly the criticized and forgotten private health sector as a key player and thirdly the user and provider barriers faced by Omani patients in the Omani public health system.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The study has identified some of the challenges and barriers to TB control in Oman. These challenges are mainly related to unintended negative consequences arising from the current repatriation policy of immigrants and to and the lack of involvement of the private sector in TB control. TB control strategies designed to address these challenges are needed, for Oman to reach its TB elimination targets.</p