Will the Need-Based Planning of Health Human Resources Currently Undertaken in Several Countries Lead to Excess Supply and Inefficiency? A Comment on Basu and Pak.
Basu and Pak (2014) argue that need-based workforce planning models would not maximize social welfare, and use of need-based models would result in inefficiency. They propose that planning be based on service utilization to incorporate preferences or other socioeconomic factors. We show that the analysis is based on inappropriate considerations of the nature of healthcare demand, a misrepresentation of need-based approaches and misunderstanding publicly funded healthcare system objectives. We explain how current levels of utilization emerge from workload and income interests of providers that underlie utilization-based models and are incompatible with public goals of maximizing health gains. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Centre for Health economics and Policy Analysis, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.|WHO/PAHO Collaborating Centre on Health Workforce Planning & Research Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada.|Centre for Health Economics, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
Stephen
S
Birch
WHO/PAHO Collaborating Centre on Health Workforce Planning & Research Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada.
Gail
G
Tomblin Murphy
WHO/PAHO Collaborating Centre on Health Workforce Planning & Research Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada.
Adrian
A
MacKenzie
Centre for Health Economics, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
William
W
Whittaker
Centre for Health Economics, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
Thomas
T
Mason
D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D006282:Health Personnel; D006285:Health Planning; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D012946:Social Welfare; D016526:Workload
health workforce; healthcare planning; population needs