Assessing the need for human resources in health: Nephrologist supply forecast in Uruguay

Introduction: improving the health of populations by means of favoring universal access with equity requires the appropriate number and right distribution of pro-fessionals, according to the different health problems people face. Rigorous methodologies should include identification of health requirements in order to comply with this principle.Objective: to estimate the demand for nephrologists in the Uruguayan population in 2020.Method: a group of reference nephrologists - scho-lars or members of the scientific society -was formed to forecast the demand for these specialists. To that end they reviewed historical data and sources of this field of knowledge that have some connection with kidney di-seases in the studied population. Subsequently, a num-ber of assumptions and initial conditions were defined to conduct the study. The demand for nephrologists in Uru-guay by 2020 was estimated for the whole country and by department, and it was expressed in absolute values and professional-to-population ratio. Alternative requi-rement scenarios were identified based on modifications to the initial conditions.Results: the demand for nephrologists is between 139 and 192 professionals, which implies a 39 to 54 per 1 million inhabitants ratio.Conclusions: this is the first one of this kind of studies conducted in Uruguay to report standards for nephrologists requirement in specialists per one million inhabitants, for different scenarios defined based on cri-teria that have been made explicit and backed.