Cost-effectiveness analysis of establishing a distance-education programme for health personnel in Swaziland.

There is a growing conviction among policy-makers that the availability of adequate numbers of well-trained and motivated human resources is a key determinant of health system' s capacity to achieve their health, responsiveness and fairness-improving goals. The objective of this study was to estimate the cost, effectiveness and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios of various distance-education strategies for the health sector in Swaziland; and recommend the most cost-effective option. The distance-education strategies evaluated included: Mobile library services (MLS); micro-resources centers WITHOUT video conferencing in five health centers and four regional hospitals (MRC-VC); micro-resources centers WITH video conferencing in five health centers and four regional hospitals (MRC+VC); centralized resource center WITHOUT video conferencing (CRC-VC); centralized resource center WITH video conferencing (CRC+VC); and status quo (SQ).