An adequate, well-trained, and diverse health care workforce is essential for providing access to quality health care services. However, despite more than a decade of concerted global action to address the health workforce crisis, collective efforts are falling short in scaling up the supply of health workers. The resulting health workforce shortage affects people's access to quality health care around the globe.



In October 2016, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop to explore resources for financing health professional education in high-, middle-, and low-income countries and innovative methods for financially supporting investments in health professional education within and across professions. Participants examined opportunities for matching population health needs with the right number, mix, distribution, and skill set of health workers while considering how supply and demand drive decisions within education and health. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

Table of Contents


Front Matter
1 Introduction
2 Matching the Health Workforce to Population Needs
3 Understanding and Applying a Model for Financing Health Professional Education
4 Reflections and Potential Next Steps for Building a Model
Appendix A: Workshop Agenda
Appendix B: Future Financing of Health Professional Education Workshop Background Document
Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches
Appendix D: Forum-Sponsored Products