New WHO Collaborating Centre at Dal

Professor of Nursing Dr. Gail Tomblin Murphy is the director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre in Health Workforce Planning and Research. (Danny Abriel Photo)

When Gail Tomblin Murphy started her nursing career two decades ago, she worked in the intensive care unit at Halifax’s Victoria General Hospital. That experience—caring for patients in crisis and meeting the people close to them—shapes her work even now as director of the newly designated World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre in Health Workforce Planning and Research here at Dalhousie University.

“When people are in crisis, when they are really ill, they break into total honesty about what they truly need,” says Dr. Tomblin Murphy, who is also a professor in Dalhousie’s School of Nursing.

As director of the international centre, she is eager to learn about the needs of the general population, patients, families and members of health-care teams. She believe the critical global shortage of health-care providers is and will continue to be a catalyst for a clearer understanding of people’s health-care needs, whether they live in the Amazon in Brazil, on the streets of Kingston, Jamaica or in rural Nova Scotian communities.

In addition to WHO and the Faculty of Health Professions, School of Nursing, partners in the research Centre include Dalhousie’s Faculty of Health Professions, the Pan American Health Organization, Nova Scotia Department of Health, Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation and Health Canada, as well as McMaster University, University of Western Ontario and Memorial University. 

Forging partnerships

“These partnerships are crucial as we move forward in planning to deliver care based on the needs of the population,” says Dr. Tomblin Murphy. “We will be better able to share our research and information because of the partnerships forged through this centre.”

In discussing the centre’s mandate, Dr. Tomblin Murphy returns to the crucial question: What are the needs of the population? 

“It is essential that we work to find the answer this question so that policy makers can align their health-care planning with people’s needs,” she says.

Sharing research

Assessing those needs through research is the next step. “Governments need evidence in order to come up with effective plans and policies, and this is especially important in areas where resources are tight,” adds Adrian MacKenzie, an analyst on the WHO Collaborating Centre team.

The centre’s partners can all learn from each other. For example, the Brazilian government has recently shifted its emphasis of its health-care system to primary care delivered by family health-care teams, supported by a dramatic increase in funding. “They are already seeing huge benefits in hard measures like (lower) infant mortality rates, particularly in rural areas,” says Mr. MacKenzie.

“With the partnerships between countries, there is a great deal we can learn from each other as we face similar challenges,” says Dr. Tomblin Murphy.

Evaluating

Besides forging partnerships, supporting needs-based health system planning, and building and sharing knowledge, the other key focus of the centre is on evaluations: determining how well health-care initiatives are actually working.

For example, one identified need might be to improve health care for rural populations. Partnerships established through the centre allow an assessment of solutions such as evaluating the impact that the new Models of Care Initiative in Nova Scotia has on the health of Nova Scotians.

“This is one of the true innovations of the centre—evaluation is an important priority,” says Dr. Tomblin Murphy. 

The centre has opened its doors in a suite of offices within the Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation, located in the Centennial Building in downtown Halifax. Support for research has come from Health Canada and Pan American Health Organization.