Healthcare, Frugal Innovation, and Professional Voluntarism: A Cost-Benefit Analysis

by Helen Louise Ackers, James Ackers-Johnson, John Chatwin, Natasha Tyler

Overview

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.

This book investigates what international placements of healthcare employees in low resource settings add to the UK workforce and the efficacy of its national health system. The authors present empirical data collected from a volunteer deployment project in Uganda focused on reducing maternal and new-born mortality and discuss the learning and experiential outcomes for UK health care professionals acting as long term volunteers in low resource settings. They also develop a model for structured placement that offers optimal learning and experiential outcomes and minimizes risk, while shedding new light on the role that international placements play as part of continuing professional development both in the UK and in other sending countries.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783319839233
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	07/27/2018
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2017
Pages:	141
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Helen Louise Ackers is Chair in Global Social Justice at the University of Salford, UK.

James Ackers-Johnson is Project Manager at the University of Salford, UK.

John Chatwin is a qualitative researcher who has worked on a wide variety of high profile international studies.

Natasha Tyler is Doctoral Researcher based in the Knowledge and Place Research Group at the University of Salford, UK.

Table of Contents

1. International mobility and learning in the UK National Health Service .- 2. Internationalisation and placement activity in the UK National Health Service .- 3. What do health workers learn on international placements? .- 4. Managing costs and risks .- 5. Conclusions: Towards a model for sustainable professional volunteering.

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Carole A. Kenner, PhD, RN, FAAN, FNAP, ANEF (The College of New Jersey)
Description: This book tackles the difficult topic of healthcare workers who take international assignments for short- or long-term placement and, specifically, the impact on maternal/newborn mortality in Uganda.
Purpose: The purpose is to explore the use of international placements of healthcare workers as a model for professional development and the impact on public health issues such as maternal/newborn mortality. The authors introduce the concept of frugal innovation to reduce public health costs while providing high quality care.
Audience: The intended audience is not defined, but individuals interested in workforce issues, international placements, and policy implications of the use of temporary healthcare workers would find the book useful. Graduate students in these areas would be able to use the information as a basis for public health or policy discussions.
Features: The basis for this book is a MOVE study undertaken in the U.K. by health professional schools from the University of Salford and Manchester University Medical School. The study objectives were to answer several questions about the mobility of the workforce between the U.K. and Uganda, the knowledge gained, what strategic training looks like, barriers to international placements and knowledge acquisition, and to determine the evidence to use a psychometric tool that would measure outcomes associated with professional volunteerism in low-resourced countries. Cost analysis is a part of the study. Each chapter addresses aspects of this study, starting with a description of the study methods and moving on to why international placements occur, how the professional learns, what the associated costs are, including the cost of personal safety, and ends with a discussion of a sustainable model for professional volunteerism. Each chapter is available through open access.
Assessment: There is no comparable book on the market. This book addresses a difficult topic — international placements — but within the unique context of "frugal innovation" and the impact on learning as well as on the public health issue of maternal/newborn mortality.

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