Results of study on family group practice’s human resources / Монголын Анагаах Ухаан

ABSTRACT

Introduction: First family group practices (FGPs) started to function in 1999 and there are 225 FGPs in Mongolia. FGP is a primary health care unit that renders medical assistance for all urban population in the country. Privatized FGPs act as contractors for state responsibility service and this one of the innovations that raises challenges to make primary health care services more accessible improve their quality and strengthen their human resources. Greater equity of service access and provision depends on structure and capacity of human resources of FGPs. Therefore, there is a need to study human resources provision and their specialization profile in FGPs.Objectives: To study human resource provision and its specialization profile in FGPs of Ulaanbaatar city.Design: Cross-sectional study Material and Methods: Developed registration checklists and questionnaire were used for collection data on human resources, their specialization and training needs.Settings: 77 FGPs in Ulaanbaatar were covered by the studyResults: There were 2273 people per one family doctor and 2233 people per one family nurse. This means that a family doctor and a family nurse provide services for population almost twice greater compared to required standards and it was observed in all districts of Ulaanbaatar. Most of family doctors (71.6%) graduated as basic doctors and only 10.5% of them specialized as family doctors or general practitioners. Some 15.5% of all selected family doctors attended an upgrading training in family practice and only 1.6% attended specialization training. There were 180 nurses covered by the study and 143 (79.4%), 24 (13.3%), 4 (2.2%) and only 2 (1.1%) of them were trained as general nurse, midwife, nursing assistant and family practice nurse, respectively. Some 20(11.1%) of nurses participated in the study attended some specialization training. Some 28% of family doctors stressed that they would like to attend upgrading training courses in family practice, 13% of them training on public health, 12% on healthcare management, 11% on imaging diagnostics, 8% on internal medicine, 6% on traditional medicine and 5% on child health. FGP’s nurses preference of training were as follows: 40%, 22%, 11%, and 18% were on general practice nursing, public health, management and physiotherapy, respectively.Conclusions: The FGP’s physicians and nurses have been provided service to population twice greater than in required standards, and there were only 1.6% and 1.1% of doctors and nurses attended family practice training, respectively. Therefore, there is a need to increase number of professionals in FGPs and provide specialization training to strengthen FGPs human resources.