An international group of scientists analyzed the human resources of healthcare in 204 countries and found that the average ratio of doctors in the world is 16.7 per 10,000 population. The lowest figure in Ethiopia is 0.8, the highest is in Cuba: up to 84.4. The co-authors of the work included employees of the Laboratory for the analysis of public health indicators and digitalization of healthcare at MIPT. The results of the study are published in the journal The Lancet.
The indicator of the density of doctors in Russia is quite high — 58.4 per 10,000 people. Only Switzerland is higher in the region — 64.2. At the same time, in 1990 in Russia this indicator was also higher than the average — 42.7 per 10,000 people, and Switzerland over the years showed almost a twofold increase — from 33.7 to 64.2.
Monitoring the density and distribution of health workers is crucial for the analysis and planning of health systems at both the national and international levels. One of the main objectives of the study is to study the relationship between the availability of personnel and indicators of health coverage.
Data from WHO national reports on health personnel allowed us to assess the density for 16 categories of medical workers for the period from 1990 to 2019 in 204 countries: doctors, nurses and midwives, dental staff and pharmacists. The minimum labor density thresholds required to achieve effective health coverage are 80 out of 100. Scientists have quantified the national deficit in relation to these minimum thresholds.
"Today, medicine allows us to successfully solve many problems that seemed unsolvable 10 years ago. During many operations, it is enough to make several small incisions for the introduction of tools, technological platforms allow you to create candidate vaccines for new diseases in a matter of days, and artificial intelligence systems successfully help in diagnosis, and this is not a plot from the future, but a real “Moscow Experiment”.Nevertheless, every patient needs care, and the most perfect algorithm will be able to provide him with this care, so competent human resource management in healthcare is one of the key areas", — the co-author of the study, Stanislav Ostrovnov, head of the Laboratory for the analysis of population health indicators and digitalization of healthcare at MIPT, told
You can read more about the study in the material "For Science"