On Being in Charge [Op]: A Guide to Management in Primary Health Care

The second revised edition of a popular training guide designed to help health workers, including nurses, midwives, and medical assistants, improve their managerial skills. Acknowledging the close link between good management and good health care, the manual shows how a wide range of simple managerial tools can be used to stretch scarce resources, whether through more efficient use of time or less wastage of drugs. Throughout the book, numerous exercises, practical examples, case studies, cartoons, charts, and sample forms are used to help readers adopt a problem-solving attitude and relate advice and suggestions to their own daily problems.

The guide features 14 chapters presented in four main parts, any one of which can be studied separately or as part of the whole, according to individual learning needs. The first part explains the general principles and functions of management. Part two, on personal relations, offers advice on how to motivate a health team, delegate authority, supervise, conduct meetings, and encourage high standards of work. The third and most extensive part describes problem-solving methods for the management of common problems involving equipment, drug supply, money, time, and space. The final part shows how the principles of good management can be applied to health care in a community.