Health systems depend heavily on human resources for health (HRH), as providing high-quality healthcare requires a robust workforce. In the midst of a worldwide labour shortage, national HRH policies are being strengthened, especially in rural areas. Encouraging data-driven decision making is the main objective of Human Resources for Health Information Systems (HRHIS). A comprehensive review of the literature utilizing terms such as HRH, HRHIS, data use, decision making, and health workforce registry on the use of HRH data from 2000 to 2023. Selected papers were placed in a folder, and manually reviewed the complete texts to make sure the inclusion criteria were met after going through a methodical screening procedure. After eliminating duplicates, 55 (54%) of the 102 unique titles and abstracts that the search produced remained. Nineteen publications met the requirements for full-text review: two (10.5%) technical briefs on HRH and HRHIS implementation, seven (36.1%) working/discussion papers, and ten (52.6%) journal articles. The impact of HRH and HRHIS in healthcare is covered in these papers, which cover the years 2004 through 2021. Many published works discuss improving HRH data use in decision-making, but comparing outcomes is challenging due to limited explicit definitions and scarce evidence evaluating interventions. Measuring HRH data use is complex, influenced by governance, commitment, political will, and funding. Retrospective assessment of data-informed decisions is difficult, necessitating better measures. Understanding intervention outcomes requires innovative approaches to identify best practices and replicate successes in HRH data utilization for decision-making. It is not enough simply to make data available, there must be a process in place for analyzing the information and getting it to the right decision-maker with the power and resources to act on it. Nigeria Health Workforce Registry should be improved by the Federal Ministry of Health so as to ensure evidence-based decision-making.
Keywords: Data, Human, Resources, Health, Information, decision-making.