Table 3 Summary of the policy and management interventions identified by domain and area of intervention

Supporting and protecting HCWs (individual level)

Decent working conditions

• Programs of training for use of PPE, biosafety measures and infection prevent control [30, 39, 42, 43, 46]

• Establishment epidemiological monitoring and infection control, harmonization of standard operating procedures [41, 45]

• Policies to access to PPE [34, 44]

• Reassignment of HCWs at high risk [40, 47]

• Campaign to reduce harassment and violence against HCWs [48]

• Provide mental health and well-being [33, 56,57,58, 60, 97]

• Vaccination for HCW as priority groups [44, 49,50,51, 53, 54] and mandatory for HCWs [52]

Remuneration and incentives

• Increase resources and budget reallocations to HCWs [52, 62]

• Financial incentives, such as salary adjustment, extra hours, special bonuses and others [42, 44, 53, 54, 58, 63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71]

• Non-financial incentives, such as: free accommodation and transportation, scholar credits, support for children by organized childcare or provide a bonus for the purchase of babysitting services and others [43, 58, 59, 65, 72]

• Financial compensation, such as paid leave, insurance cover and others [33, 34, 68, 73]

Strengthening and optimizing HCWF teams (management)

Building competencies through education and training

• Online training, such as online course, platforms, mobile applications and others [28, 32, 35, 74,75,76]

• Supervision of online specialists for immediate consultation by professionals in specific care situations [36]

• Supervision assurance to reinforce skills acquired to provide care beyond usual professional skills [98]

• Support from professional associations in training the HCWF [39]

• Review of national guidelines and development of training according to current evidence [40, 45, 77]

Optimizing roles

• Expansion of scope of practice [42, 59, 70, 81]

• Shift in responsibilities and relocation to face shortage skills [54, 78, 80, 98]

• Availability of personnel for dedicated hotlines, apps and telemedicine [34, 43]

• Redistribution of tasks among HCWF to take advantage of scope of available skills [34, 69, 71]

Leveraging community-based HCWs

Not found

Increasing capacity and strategic HCWs deployment (organizational)

Improving HCWs availability

• Strategies to improve availability, such as volunteering, freelance, short term and temporary contract [41, 47, 76]

• Redeployment such as relocated workers from other sectors and from private or public sector [88] Mobilization of non-health workers to perform no medical support tasks in areas, where additional workforce was needed, and mobilization of teachers, academics, retired professional [42, 44, 47, 49, 51, 52, 54, 55, 59, 62,63,64,65, 69, 73, 75, 76, 80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87]

• Temporary licenses or hiring without validation of qualification for overseas trained professionals [42, 85]

• • Asking to work extra hours (e.g., expand shift lengths, part time to work full time), cancelling leaves of absence or planned retirements of existing personnel and prohibiting workers from leaving the country to increase the capacity of the existing health workforce [47, 52, 53, 59, 63, 80, 85]

Rationalizing the HCWF distribution

• Temporary redeployment of experienced staff [31, 42, 55, 88, 89]

• Range of strategies to expand the use of telehealth [29, 34, 39, 43, 44, 51, 52, 54, 55, 59, 62, 66, 67, 69, 70, 77, 79, 80, 83, 84, 86, 87, 90,91,92]

Supportive work environment and manageable workload

• Strengthen existing or institute a supportive mechanism for better communication, such as call center and ethical support units [48, 93]

System-level HRH interventions (systemwide)

Strengthening governance and intersectoral collaboration mechanisms

Fast track legislation and intersectoral collaborations to increase availability [47, 52, 55, 73, 86]

Financial strategies to respond to COVID-19 such as allocation of financial resources, recovery plan and adjustment to ensure availability of funds to pay for COVID-19 services [42, 54, 59, 66, 69, 79, 81, 82]

Improving HCWF information systems

• Health information system to planning tools to rapidly assess workforce requirements such as monitoring reporting absence system [60]

• Implementation of database in nursing homes for monitoring PPE and professional shortage [94]

Assessment, planning of HCWF needs

• Creation of database of inactive workers; health service reserve list; mandatory census of all licensed health care practitioners [43, 44, 50]

• Temporary suspension of regulations [80]

Licensing and regulation

• Short-term training to professionals from abroad; waive of administrative process requirement [42, 73, 76]

• Measures to loosen regulations [34, 41, 42, 65, 66, 73, 76, 79, 86]

• Recognition of foreign training and accelerated licensing or credentialing [42, 72, 73, 76, 95, 96]