Factors Effecting distribution of medical specialists in Iranian national health system

Introduction: Health workers shortages are pressing problem around the world. There is inequality in the distribution of physicians in Iran. Objective: We attempted to find out main factors that may influence the distribution of specialist doctors throughout the country. Method: The nominal group technique was used to determine essential factors responsible for maldistribution of physicians. Results: Results revealed that among 38 factors influencing the distribution of specialist doctors across the country, 17 factors were related to Iran's National Health System. The number of population in an area and the place of hospital in relation to health system services level ranked as 1 and 38, respectively. Discussion: Although "number of population" assigned to Cultural and social category a subset of outside INHS factors was referred as the most important factor, ranking the categories showed that "human resources" category was the most critical among the 11 categories. Conclusion: Taking in to account the resulted items and the relative importance of them in policy-making processes can be informative.