Human Resources for Health:  National Needs and Global Concerns: A Research and Policy Retreat, April 11-12, 2006

Forty national and international experts convened at the University of Pennsylvania to discuss national and global needs for nurses and physicians.  The meeting was organized by the Penn Consortium for Human Resources in Health which is co-chaired by Linda Aiken of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research and Richard Cooper of the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics.  The purpose of the meeting was to develop an action agenda to enhance future health care in the US and improve global health by encouraging domestic policies that will create global sufficiency in the supply and effectiveness of nurses and physicians.
 
The fundamental problem addressed at the retreat is that there are simply not enough English speaking nurses and physicians produced worldwide to meet the combined demand of developed and developing countries.  The ultimate goal of this retreat was to energize the processes of research and policy development that address questions on the sufficiency of health worker supply, US nurse and physician education capacity, and source nation stability; and to engage a broad array of constituencies that will be important in crafting durable solutions.  The retreat was supported by the Rockefeller Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania.