Global Health Workforce Development Institute (GHWDI)

Our
Institute

The Global Health Workforce Development Institute is a center of knowledge and excellence for health worker career advancement and mobility.

Launched in early 2024, the Global Health Workforce Development Institute conducts original research and leverages knowledge and data developed by TruMerit over its half-century of providing credentialing services affecting health worker migration. Its goal is to advance scientific knowledge about the evolution of health workforce roles, the impacts of health workforce mobility, and the development of credentialing and certification programs and policies.

Among the Institute’s primary objectives is creating rigorous global certification programs that streamline the assessment and recognition of practice competency. These will empower nurses and other health professionals around the world to achieve “work-readiness” regardless of where they choose to apply their knowledge and skills, while enabling them to showcase their competencies to employers, regulators, and educators worldwide.

The Institute’s mission is to: 

  • Advance global health workforce initiatives that empower health workers to improve care delivery and health outcomes. 
  • Connect service providers, policy makers, public advocates, and experts through contributions to knowledge management, research, assessment, and certification. 
  • Focus on global health workforce development using an interdisciplinary, evidenced-based approach, informed by research emphasizing implementation science and product development strategies. 

The Institute’s effort will be guided by the following themes: 

  • Research
  • Competency Validation
  • Knowledge Generation
  • Care delivery 

Institute centers

  • Center for Global Assessment and Certifications
    Leads efforts in the setting of global standards and assessment of competencies in the health professions.
  • Center for Knowledge Management
    Manages TruMerit’s extensive international education and health regulatory databases, along with other knowledge assets, with a focus on leveraging the educational and regulatory data to advance initiatives, policies and further research in global health workforce development.
  • Center for Global Research and Policy
    Catalyzes a robust research and development agenda and contributes to global human resources for health scholarship through inquiry around global health workforce development, care delivery, and lifelong learning issues.
  • Global Nursing Workforce Centre (GNWC)
    A joint initiative of the International Council of Nurses (ICN) and TruMerit, the GNWC is a clearinghouse for research from around the world focusing on the nursing workforce. In addition to collecting and organizing nursing workforce research papers and publications, the Centre will analyze findings to identify trends, summarize policy recommendations, and highlight data and policy gaps.

Institute Research

The Nursing Education Pipeline: A literature review from 2014 to 2025

Institute News…

Institute leadership

Jason A. Richter
Operations Director, Global Health Workforce Development Institute

Global Health Workforce Development Institute Advisory Council

Amanda Marr Chung, PhD

Executive Director
Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health
United States

Julie A. Fairman, PhD, RN, FAAN

Endowed Nightingale Professor in Honor of Nursing Veterans
Emerita at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing

Lilian Ferrer, MS, PhD

Vice President for International Affairs and Professor
Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
Director, The Center for Health Services and Nursing Development for Non-
communicable Diseases Care
Chile

James Henderson, PhD

Psychometrician
Credentialing Examination Consulting, LLC
United States

Quinette Louw, BSc, MASP, PhD

Executive Head
Department of Health and Rehabilitation Studies, Stellenbosch University

South African Research Chair in Innovative Rehabilitation and Adjunct Professor, University of South Australia, South Africa

Don Eliseo Lucero-Prisno III

Global Health Scientist
Editor-in-Chief, Public Health Challenges (Wiley)
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
United Kingdom

Jack Needleman, PhD, FAAN

Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health

Oscar Ocho

Director of School of Nursing, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus
Ministry of Health, Acting Chief Nursing Officer, West Indies

Wesley Teter

Higher Education Reform Expert
Asian Development Bank
Thailand