Training Institutions Service Availability Mapping (TISAM) – Data Collection, Cartography & Analysis Workshop
Abuja, Nigeria – The West African Health Organization (WAHO) is holding in Abuja, Nigeria, from 27 to 31 May 2019, a data collection, cartography & analysis workshop as part of the Training Institution Services Availability Mapping.
The main objective of the workshop was to scale-up the production of health professionals in order to have adequate number of well trained, well-motivated and equitably distributed health professionals in the ECOWAS region.
The workshop was also meant to carry out Survey of geographical distribution of training institutions to determine:
- Number of institutions that training health professionals
- Geographical location of the Institutions
- Number and type of training programs accredited for the Institutions
- Existing training programs and potential capacity of the training institutions
- Number of in-service training carried out for health workers in member countries.
Participants included Directors of Human Resources for Health, Data Programming and ICT Engineers, representatives of Regulatory Bodies, and National Bureau of statistics from 15 ECOWAS countries as well as and WAHO Professionals in charge of training and Human Resources for Health.
Milestones expected include:
- Complete training and data analysis in 15 countries by quarter IV of 2019
- Finalize validation process for 15 countries by Quarter 1of 2020
- Regional Stakeholders Validation for all countries Quarter 2 of 2020
- Publication and dissemination of Regional Inventory on HRH Training August 2020
Training Institution Services Availability Mapping (TISAM) is a tool for collection, coding, analysis, cartography and geospatial reporting of data on institutions for training of health professionals of different categories in West Africa.
The absence of accurate and readily available health workforce information is a major impediment to effective planning and decision-making. Without this information, countries cannot ascertain if enough and right proportion of health workers are being trained to meet the projected need and how policy changes might affect the workforce. Inaccurate information will put member countries in difficulty ensuring that health workers are optimally deployed in locations to meet national health priorities, or knowing how many health workers need to be recruited to fill vacancies. Countries will also not be able to juxtapose how many health workers are leaving the workforce or what initiatives are to be effected to motivate and ensure their retention. When quality data and effective cartography are in place, leaders and decision-makers can better understand the current health workforce and plan for recruitment, training and retention for an improved service delivery. Hence the need for the workshop.
