Making connections for sustainable health systems: Professionalism and health human resource policies

Recent European and international initiatives have brought the significance of health human resources under the spotlight of public health. ‘All for health workers’, as the Kampala Declaration stated, indicates a paradigm shift in health policy, yet no comprehensive model of human resource management exists. Here, theories and research from the realm of sociology of professions can fill a gap and help to better understand the opportunities for, and barriers to the development and implementation of more integrated and sustainable policies. By placing professions in the wider context of ‘modernization’ as a sociological phenomenon, it can be argued that professionalism embodies both challenges to public health and a potential for innovating health-care systems. Drawing on data from research in Germany and secondary sources of cross-country comparison, the transformative potential of professionalism and strategic use of managerial governance in professional action and clinical practice; and the institutional conditions that may further a more inclusive professionalism and collaborative care will be shown. The article concludes by highlighting the benefits of connecting professionalism and health human resource policies and how this may contribute to sustainable health systems for all citizens.