“Health PROMeTHEUS” is EU FP7- funded Health Professional Mobility in the European Union Study 2009-2011. Despite the growing relevance of the topic due to emerging challenges and trends in health care, there are still substantial limits to and gaps in information on the mobility of health professionals. The objective of Health PROMeTHEUS is to address these gaps in order to be able to generate recommendations for more effective human resource policies. The study seeks to better understand existing patterns of professional mobility and the organizational, contextual and personal factors that push and pull staff across borders. It considers the positive and negative impacts of mobility and maps the international, national and organizational initiatives that seek to manage it better. It also aims to highlight feasible, effective policy interventions whether national or international and to identify effective managerial responses. Health professional mobility affects these processes by changing the size and composition of the workforce, both in sending and receiving countries. These changes have impact on the functioning and performance of health systems. Given these complex processes, policy makers in Europe are increasingly concerned about the health workforce and health professional mobility. The project attempts to find out: what are the patterns,  push and pull factors that make health professional move. In order to show the dynamics of the mobility and health workforce mobility profiles, country case studies were developed which represent the situation in different European Member States.

More information at:

http://www.euro.who.int/en/home/projects/observatory/activities/research-studies-and-projects/prometheus

The Department of International Health participated in the project leading to the development of a country case study on health professionals’ mobility in Poland. This and other studies can be found in the book: M. Wismar, C. Maier, I. A. Glinos, G. Dussault eds. Health professional mobility and health systems: evidence from 17 European countries European Observatory Series 2011. The book aims at contributing to enhancing our knowledge on health professional mobility in the EU and on its impacts on country health systems. A shorter version of the book including only Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Spain and the United Kingdom as country case studies will be soon available in EURO OBSERVER issue on the results of the PROMeTHEUS case study which will be available both in print and on the web at: http://www.euro.who.int/en/home/projects/observatory/publications/euro-observer.

For more information about the Polish case study contact: dr Katarzyna Czabanowska

Kasia.czabanowska@maastrichtuniversity.nl