The report presents two key indicators of estimating health worker mobility as reported by destination countries – the share of the foreign-trained and/or foreign-born health workers. The results presented in this report formulate new thinking around the interlinkages of monitoring Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicator 3.c.1 on health worker density and distribution and health worker mobility and migration. This report provides the most comprehensive compendium of data on health workforce migration ever published, with data from 134 countries, areas and territories, covering all six WHO regions. This report stipulates [highlights/emphasizes?] the importance of accurately measuring and monitoring health worker mobility – as a lever of influence – in designing, implementing and assessing remedial policies aimed at addressing skills imbalances and future health systems performance development.

This book on mobility of health professionals reviews, analyses and summarises published information and data as well as collected interview data from stake holders, including politicians, policy makers, health service managers and migrant health workers. It is based on the research carried out under the umbrella of the EU-funded project “Mobility of Health Professionals (MoHProf). The partners involved in the MoHProf project gathered evidence from 25 countries around basic questions and knowledge gaps relating to the international migration of health professionals, which involved an analysis of migration flows and evaluation of policies addressing migration. This book provides a comprehensive description and analysis of the mobility streams, the motives and driving forces behind them and the impact on and challenges for health systems and draws conclusions and provides recommendations for future strategic planning, monitoring and the management of mobility of health professionals as well as further research and policy development needs.

International skilled heath worker migration is a key feature of the global economy, a major contributor to socio-economic development and reflective of the transnationalization of health and elder care that is underway in most OECD nations. The distribution of care and health workforce planning has previously been analysed solely within national contexts, but increasingly scholars have shown how care deficits are being addressed through transnational responses. This Element examines the complex processes that feed health worker migrants into global circulation, the losses and gains associated with such mobility and examples of good practices, where migrants, sending and destination communities experience the best possible outcomes. It will approach this issue through the lens of problems, and solutions, making connections across the micro, meso and macro within and across the sections.

International migration and mobility of health workers is increasing in volume and complexity. If not adequately managed, migration of health workers from low and middle-income countries can exacerbate shortages and can weaken health systems in these countries and widen inequities. Among various pathways for movement of health workers, government-to-government agreements hold important potential to ensure that health workers and the health systems of participating countries benefit from health worker migration and mobility. This guidance is a tool for improving the capacity of state actors involved in the development, negotiation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of agreements related to international health worker migration and mobility, keeping health system priorities at the fore, in alignment with the provisions of the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel.

Bringing together diverse approaches and case studies of international health worker migration, Global Migration, Gender, and Health Professional Credentials critically reimagines how we conceptualize the transfer of value embodied in internationally educated health professionals (IEHPs). This volume provides key insights into the economistic and feminist concepts of global value transmission, the complexity of health worker migration, and the gendered and intersectional intricacies involved in the workplace integration of immigrant health care workers. The contributions to this edited collection uncover the multitude of actors who play a role in creating, transmitting, transforming, and utilizing the value embedded in international health migrants.

Despite its substantial and increasing importance to health systems and inclusive economic growth, the relationship between international trade in services and health worker mobility has been largely unexplored. However, international health worker mobility and trade in services have both been increasing rapidly, and at a growing pace in recent years. Trade in services frameworks (global, regional, bilateral) are an important vehicle for health worker mobility. In this paper we analyse the commitments made in the context of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and regional and bilateral trade agreements that cover services. Although there is room for more and deeper commitments, undertakings related to health worker mobility are already made in many trade agreements, with commitments more numerous and deeper in the regional and bilateral agreements than in the context of GATS. In addition, trade in services frameworks contain flexibility to strengthen and advance ethical health worker mobility, in accordance with the principles and recommendations of the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel. A strengthened collaboration between health and trade stakeholders could therefore serve to significantly expand sustainable development worldwide. There is potential for health stakeholders to strategically leverage trade dialogue and agreements to meet health system needs. Building on available tools, trade in services could help address the concerns of the health sector by ensuring that health worker mobility can respond to worldwide demand, while explicitly addressing health systems concerns across countries.

This report describes recent trends in the international migration of doctors and nurses in OECD countries. Over the past decade, the number of doctors and nurses has increased in many OECD countries, and foreign-born and foreign-trained doctors and nurses have contributed to a significant extent. New in-depth analysis of the internationalisation of medical education shows that in some countries (e.g. Israel, Norway, Sweden and the United States) a large and growing number of foreign-trained doctors are people born in these countries who obtained their first medical degree abroad before coming back. The report includes four case studies on the internationalisation of medical education in Europe (France, Ireland, Poland and Romania) as well as a case study on the integration of foreign-trained doctors in Canada.