Health care workers don’t get the info they need
Two colleagues have done a literature review on the Information needs
of health care workers in developing countries with a focus on Africa. Their damning conclusion:
“Health care workers in developing countries continue to lack access to
basic, practical information to enable them to deliver safe, effective
care.
Studies suggest a gross lack of knowledge about the basics on how
to diagnose and manage common diseases, going right across the health
workforce and often associated with suboptimal, ineffective and
dangerous health care practices. If this level of knowledge and
practice is representative, as it appears to be, it indicates that
modern medicine, even at a basic level, has largely failed the majority
of the world’s population. The information and learning needs of family
caregivers and primary and district health workers have been ignored
for too long. Improving the availability and use of relevant, reliable
health care information has enormous potential to radically improve
health care worldwide”
The full article is in Human Resources for Health, an open-access journal: http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/7/1/30
