Gialama Fotini, Saridi Maria, Prezerakos Panagiotis, Pollalis Yiannis, Contiades Xenofon, Souliotis Kyriakos
Department of Social and Educational Policy, University of Peloponnese, Corinth, Greece.
Department of Nursing, University of Peloponnese, Sparti, Greece.
Eur J Midwifery. 2019 Jan 23;3:1. doi: 10.18332/ejm/100559. eCollection 2019.
One of the greatest challenges in the healthcare field is planning the health workforce under limited financial resources while being fully capable of responding to an affordable, fair and efficient healthcare system. This study aimed to demonstrate the implementation process of the health workforce planning tool 'Workload Indicators of Staffing Needs' introduced by the World Health Organization.
A descriptive and cross-sectional study was carried out at four (two public and two private) hospitals in Greece, to estimate midwifery staff requirements at ward level during 2015-2016, using the WISN software tool. Focus group discussions, structured interviews and annual service statistics from the hospitals' records were used to obtain data.
Results for both private hospitals showed a shortage in the number of midwives. However, after combining the interpretation of the results, as indicated by the WISN methodology and the structured interviews, current and required staffing is in balance in both. On the other hand, both public hospitals indicate a surplus of midwives (1.83 and 1.33 ratios for the General hospitals in Korinthos and Kalamata, respectively).
This study demonstrated the implementation process of the WISN methodology through its application in midwifery staff at four hospitals in Greece and confirmed its usefulness in estimating staffing requirements. The application of the WISN methodology should be viewed as a vital tool in assessing overstaffing and understaffing through the estimation of workload pressure among different categories of health staff, thus providing the basis for effective health workforce redistribution in Greece.
医疗保健领域最大的挑战之一是在财政资源有限的情况下规划卫生人力，同时要完全有能力应对一个负担得起、公平且高效的医疗体系。本研究旨在展示世界卫生组织推出的卫生人力规划工具“人员配置需求工作量指标”（WISN）的实施过程。
在希腊的四家医院（两家公立医院和两家私立医院）开展了一项描述性横断面研究，使用WISN软件工具估算2015 - 2016年期间病房层面的助产士人员需求。通过焦点小组讨论、结构化访谈以及医院记录中的年度服务统计数据来获取资料。
两家私立医院的结果均显示助产士数量短缺。然而，结合WISN方法所示结果及结构化访谈的解读来看，两家医院目前的人员配置与所需配置处于平衡状态。另一方面，两家公立医院均显示助产士过剩（科林斯和卡拉马塔的综合医院的比率分别为1.83和1.33）。
本研究通过在希腊四家医院的助产士人员中应用WISN方法展示了其实施过程，并证实了该方法在估算人员配置需求方面的有用性。WISN方法的应用应被视为通过估算不同类别卫生人员的工作量压力来评估人员过剩和不足的重要工具，从而为希腊有效重新分配卫生人力提供依据。
