Human Factors in Healthcare (Dec 2024)
Workload Indicators of Staffing Need (WISN) method for health workforce planning at health facility: A scoping review
Abstract
Background: In the presence of diverse workforce planning methods, identifying the advantages, challenges, and limitations of each method is crucial. Population-to-health-workforce ratio method faces challenges due to continuous population growth and variations in healthcare needs over time. While a standard staffing schedule was utilized to address the challenges of the population ratio method, it encountered another challenge in distributing health workforces within a country's health facilities. Workload Indicators of Staffing Need (WISN) method was designed to alleviate challenges posed by the aforementioned methods. However, the challenges and limitations of the WISN method have not been systematically reviewed, which is the motivation for this scoping review. Methods: We conducted a scoping review of the literature with the objective of identifying the implications, challenges, and limitations of the WISN method in workforce planning at health facilities. We followed Arksey and O'Malley's methodological steps to develop research questions, identify relevant studies, include/exclude studies, extract data, and report the findings. To ensure methodological quality, we used the PRISMA guideline and PRISMA-ScR checklist. Results: Twenty-seven studies were eligible, with more than 83 % published between 2019 and 2022. The majority of studies utilized retrospective quantitative data with a cross-sectional study design, although four studies also incorporated qualitative components. Major challenges identified were the multitasking nature of some professions, poor data quality or availability, and technical details of the WISN method itself. This review revealed limitations of the WISN method in the reliability of its results, as it depends on last year's records. Conclusion: WISN model of human resources for health planning adjusts workload pressure among health care workers within and between health facilities. Health care administrators use it for task-shifting indicators within a health facility and equitable distribution indicators between health facilities. Being a very useful human resource planning-tool WISN has some challenges and limitations too.
