Commitment among state health officials & its implications for health sector reform: lessons from Gujarat.
OBJECTIVE
Commitment, competencies and skills of people working in the health sector can significantly impact the performance and its reform process. In this study we attempted to analyse the commitment of state health officials and its implications for human resource practices in Gujarat.


METHODS
A self-administered questionnaire was used to measure commitment and its relationship with human resource (HR) variables. Employee's organizational commitment (OC) and professional commitment (PC) were measured using OC and PC scale. Fifty five medical officers from Gujarat participated in the study.


RESULTS
Professional commitment of doctors (3.21 to 4.01) was found to be higher than their commitment to the organization (3.01 to 3.61). Doctors did not perceive greater fairness in the system on promotion (on the scale of 5, score: 2.55) and were of the view that the system still followed seniority based promotion (score: 3.42). Medical officers were upset about low autonomy in the department with regard to reward and recognition, accounting procedure, prioritization and synchronization of health programme and other administrative activities.


CONCLUSIONS
Our study provided some support for positive effects of progressive HR practices on OC, specifically on affective and normative OC. Following initiatives were identified to foster a development climate among the health officials: providing opportunities for training, professional competency development, developing healthy relationship between superiors and subordinates, providing useful performance feedback, and recognising and rewarding performance. For reform process in the health sector to succeed, there is a need to promote high involvement of medical officers. There is a need to invest in developing leadership quality, supervision skills and developing autonomy in its public health institutions.
Maheshwari
Sunil
S
Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad, India. sunilm@iimahd.ernet.in
Bhat
Ramesh
R
Saha
Somen
S
D000328:Adult; D018166:Health Care Reform; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D008875:Middle Aged; D015279:Organizational Culture; D010558:Personnel Loyalty; D010820:Physicians; D011361:Professional Competence; D016730:Program Development; D015397:Program Evaluation; D011634:Public Health; D013222:State Medicine / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D000078329:Workforce