Estimation of necessary healthcare staff numbers in family medicine program with WISN method in East Azerbaijan

Abstract

Introduction: National health system could bring about a significant intervention for improving quality and quantity of health care system so that provide a comprehensive services for people, therefore these services result in reducing out-of- pocket costs. The responsibility for providing and follow-up health services could be assigned to Behvarz and health care provider. The present study aimed to calculation of workload and estimation of the required number of health staff related to family medicine program in East Azerbaijan province based on WISN. Methods: The current study applied descriptive-analytic methodology which used WISN method for estimating health staff requirement for 25000 population. All health care centers in East Azerbaijan province which had health care providers were recruited. The sample size was 10 individuals. Simple random sampling technique was used. The checklist for assessing workload for health care providers was applied. Statistical analysis was performed using Excel software. Results: In the current study, five health care centers were selected from East Azerbaijan health centers (Shahid Beheshti health center from Marand province with 9963 population – four health care providers, Seyed Bavafa health center from Tabriz with 8750 population- four health care providers, Azadi health center from Tabriz with 7300 population- three health care providers, Shahid Teymori health centers from Tabriz with 12425 population- six health care providers, number one health center from Ahar with 15841 population- eight health care providers). The results showed that significant obligations for 25000 population were consisted of family health services (0.87), prevention of disease (1.067), health schools and health education (0.105). In total, 2.042 health care staffs should be recruited for providing health care services for 25000 population. In this study, Proportion of extraordinary health services and coefficient of extraordinary health services were estimated 24.1% and %1.32 respectively. Conclusion: As a result after applying coefficient of extraordinary, approximately 2.7 individuals were calculated for performing health care process for 25000 population. While calculating health staff required, we should be considered both full coverage and actual coverage