National Health Workforce Plan Comparison Australia Vs Japan

UNIT:
NAME:
DATE:

Executive Summary
Lack of an appropriate health workforce plan can threaten a health system ability to deliver
health care to it population. Health human resource plan provide strategic framework for the
future by ensuring a health system prepares medical practitioners to meet expected population
health demands (Rees, Crampton, Gauld, & MacDonell, 2018). The following report analyses
Australian and Japanese health workforce plans to find out if they have prioritized WHO health
workforce priorities. The report uses WHO reports, available information from government
websites and scholarly literature. The report found out that the countries haven’t fully
implemented WHO health workforce priorities. The report also found that the Japanese health
workforce is well organized and delivers quality, accessible and affordable health care even
without the need of implementing the WHO health workforce recommendations. The reports
therefore concludes that the Japanese health workforce plan effective because of its ability to
produce adequate skilled practitioners that meet the country demand for health care services.
Australia will require implementing all WHO recommendations on health workforce to foster
adequate, accessible, and highly skilled health workforce that is responsive to meet expected
health needs of Australians.

Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................4
Environmental Scan.....................................................................................................................................5
Australia..................................................................................................................................................5
Japan.......................................................................................................................................................6
Data Profile..................................................................................................................................................7
Summary Data Profile Table 2015...........................................................................................................7
Current Supply.........................................................................................................................................8
Age and Gender.....................................................................................................................................10
Critical Issues.............................................................................................................................................11
Australia................................................................................................................................................11
Japan.....................................................................................................................................................12
Evaluation of Australia and Japan..............................................................................................................13
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................15
References.................................................................................................................................................16

National Health Workforce Plan
Comparison Australia Vs Japan
Introduction
A health workforce plan is an important aspect to meeting a country’s current and future health
care needs. Human resource is an integral part of any health system and requires appropriate
planning from several stakeholders to optimally deliver quality and accessible health care
(Crettenden et al., 2014). World Health Organization (WHO) defines health workforce as all
individual whose work is for protecting and improving health of the communities. They include
practitioners in clinical and non clinical field who administer public and individual health
interventions. An effective national health workforce plan aim to ensuring all citizens in all
locations have access of skilled health practitioner, who is well equipped, supported and
motivated (Craveiro et al., 2018). A national health plan targets to achieve national health goals,
obligations, and commitment of its citizens. According to WHO, a health workforce plan has to
be comprehensive and address health workforce finances, policies of practice, partnership for
optimal health care, leadership in health sector, and health resource management systems. Lack
of an explicit health human resource planning threatens a country’s healthcare systems capacity
to attain its objectives. A national health workforce plan should therefore focus on developing a
healthcare system that is responsive to a population needs and expectations. The following report
compares Australian and Japan national health workforce plan. Japan healthcare is good a
comparison to Australian healthcare because of a developed country similar to Australia and has
the highest outcome in terms of life expectancy in the whole world. This will show the difference
in health workforce planning or planning process that causes the difference. This will involve
environmental scanning, preparation of workforce profiles and discussion of critical issues to
addressed in the countries health workforce plan. The report will also evaluate each country’s
national workforce plans to find out if they are addressing WHO priorities in health workforce.
Environmental Scan
This section analyses the Australian and Singaporean health workforce using national and
international health workforce plans and included polices and plans for health workforce. This