This partnership project with the Zambian Ministry of Health and Lusaka College of Nursing, reviewed and evaluated the current provision of healthcare services and critical care nursing workforce nationally to ascertain the nature of critical care patient admissions and the expertise of staff who deliver services.
The findings helped the Zambian Ministry of Health to understand how their healthcare systems are being utilised and accessed, develop and implement appropriate workforce planning policies for the next decade. The outcomes of this project delivered urgently needed government data to address identified service gaps. It also supported the implementation of project education activities from 2015 to date.
Project aims
To complete a countrywide survey research and evaluation into staffing, service provision and critical care patient case-mix in Zambia.
Who completed the project?
- Professor Joy Notter
- Chris Carter
Who are we working with?
This project was funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund in Zambia. We are working with:
- Ministry of Health
- Lusaka College of Nursing
Project outcome
The project involved a national review of19 hospitals (16 public and 3 mission), in conjunction with the Zambian Ministry of Health.
Point of prevalence national workforce planning survey 19 hospitals (16 public and 3 mission) throughout Zambia.
- Trauma and Emergency Nursing needs assessment
- Situational analysis of critical care bed capacity and equipment summary (comparative review of baseline datasets from 2016).
- Two anonymised patient datasets
- Attendance and admission rates
- Reason for admission, illness severity and outcomes from critical care units.
- 63 critical care case studies.
- National survey for MOH of nursing morale and practice to support WHO and ICN 2020 Nursing Now campaign:
- 173 nurses completed a confidential survey into their role to provide quantitative and qualitative datasets.
- 114 nurses participated in focus groups to explore in-depth understanding on the role of nurses in all specialities.
Findings from this study have been used to support the WHO Nursing Now campaign.