Workload indicators of staffing need (WISN): a manual for implementation

Acknowledgements The manual Workload Indicators of Staffing Need (WISN) has been developed and field-tested by the World Health Organization with financial support through the voluntary contribution from the Government of Japan to the Division of Human Resources Development and Capacity Building. Its contribution is greatly appreciated. This document is not issued to the general public, and all rights are reserved by the World Health Organization (WHO). The document may not be reviewed, abstracted, quoted, reproduced or translated, in part or in whole, without the prior written permission of WHO. No part of this document may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical or other-without the prior written permission of WHO. The views expressed in documents by named authors are solely the responsibility of those authors. Introduction This Manual sets out all the activities which are necessary in order to design and implement the WISN Method in a country. The material in this Manual is based on the experience and results of implementing the WISN Turkey which participated in a field trial of an early draft of this Manual (supported by WHO headquarters and the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean). A description of the principles and the main policy/management uses of the method. This section has two main purposes. First, it provides an overall picture or context for those who will design and set up the procedure, so that they can better understand how the different tasks contribute to the overall result. Second, it provides material which can be used to explain to potential users of the results, and to others who will be involved in the implementation, how the method operates and how it can be used to improve their work. How to carry out the implementation of the method. The section describes a step-by-step procedure for designing and installing the WISN Method and how these may be fitted together into an overall work plan for the implementation exercise. How to deal with the technical/mathematical aspects of the method. This section covers the setting of activity (time) standards for government health staff, how to translate these into standard (annual) workloads for use in the WISN calculations, the calculation procedures to be used, and the use of computers in performing the calculations and producing tables of results. This section lists the Activity Standards which have been used for staff categories …