Strengthening Health Workforce in Georgia: Identifying Gaps and Integrating Evidence-Based Strategic Planning.

Abstract

Health workforce planning is essential for ensuring a resilient and well-functioning healthcare system capable of addressing population needs and responding to crises. In Georgia, an upper-middle-income country, significant challenges remain in the strategic planning, regulation, and management of the health workforce. This policy analysis evaluated health workforce planning approaches in Georgia's dynamic health system context. Health workforce planning in Georgia, guided by the National Health Strategy 2022-2030, prioritises needs-based workforce planning, professional qualifications, and nursing development. However, Georgia faces data inconsistencies, workforce imbalances, and an uneven geographic distribution of healthcare professionals, limiting the efficacy of current policies. The lack of formal health workforce planning, reliance on market-driven approaches, and weak retention strategies contribute to workforce shortages and migration. A centralised planning body, and enhancement in data collection and management, could facilitate the gradual introduction of context-relevant, evidence-based workforce planning methods. By integrating rigorous, long-term workforce planning with intersectoral collaboration and adopting innovative methods like workload-based modelling and hybrid planning methods, Georgia can create a sustainable health workforce aligned with its health system's evolving needs.