: The ability of the health system of the United States to provide safe, reasonable quality care is fundamentally linked to the adequacy of its health workforce. Unfortunately, the United States and almost every country around the world is experiencing significant challenges associated with shortages of well prepared health workers. Governments worldwide are struggling to address these shortages and seeking strategies that will assure adequate supply, distribution, mix and quality of health workers in both the near and longer term. The unique global conference proposed here is designed to enable key government leaders in these efforts. At a country level, the United States (U.S.) is facing a protracted and worsening crisis with an estimated 20% shortage of nurses by 2020 (Buerhaus, Staiger, & Auerbach, 2000). This shortage leads to serious occupational safety and patient outcome concerns, as noted at a recent CDC conference """"""""Staffing patterns and nurses' working conditions are risk factors for healthcare-associated infections as well as occupational injuries and infections. Staffing shortages, especially of nurses, have been identified as one of the major factors expected to constrain hospitals' ability to deal with future outbreaks of emerging infections. These problems are compounded by a global nursing shortage. Understanding and improving nurses' working conditions can potentially decrease the incidence of many infectious diseases"""""""". (Stone PW, Clarke S, Cimiotti J, & Correa-de-Araujo R, 2004) Furthermore, the U.S. shortage of nurses has created a global labor market for nurses as foreign-born nurses come to fill the vacancies; over 10% of employed nurses in the U.S. are foreign born. (Aiken, 2005) The primary factors contributing to the global crisis include work conditions, migration and trade policy. The Global Government Health Partners Forum 2006 """"""""The Breaking Point: Human Resources for Health"""""""", to be held November 2-3, 2006 in Atlanta, Georgia at The Carter Presidential Center, will bring together Government Chief Medical Officers (CMOs), Government Chief Nursing Officers CNOs), and other invited senior health officials and policy makers to (1) increase understanding of impact of nursing shortage on patient outcomes, work conditions and occupational safety; (2) enhance knowledge on the principles of human resources and global health; (3) increase understanding of globalization and the impact of trade policy on health workers and migration; and (4) explore strategies to respond to the global crisis of the skilled health workforce shortage. The format for the two-day conference is a combination of plenary sessions, concurrent sessions, panels, and workshops. Particular emphasis is placed on developing and strengthening the professional partnerships between CMOs and CNOs as they work together to develop country specific plans of actions to address the root causes of health personnel shortages, such as work conditions and occupational hazards, in their own countries.
