Politico, M. R. S. (2011). Doctors to the Barrio Program: An assessment of the implementation and its sustainability (Unpublished master's thesis). Graduate School of Public and Development Management, Development Academy of the Philippines.

Graduate School of Public and Development Management Health Systems and Development Batch 1 Thesis (MPM-HSD)--Development Academy of the Philippines.

This Action Plan and Project involved review of the implementation of Doctors to the Barrio Program (DTTBP) and proposed recommendations for its sustainability. This aims to contribute to the improvement of the DTTB program as a strategy to address the need for doctors in mostly disadvantaged areas in the country and make the universal health care realized in the communities. The APP utilized the document review, survey, and focused group and key informant interviews. The review of the implementation looked at 3 phases: recruitment and selection, deployment, monitoring and evaluation. The DTTB reported that it has served 85% of request from underserved areas through deployment of physicians reducing the number of doctorless municipalities from 271 to 151. The results revealed that majority of the DTTBs are deployed in the regions of CAR, CARAGA, and Eastern Visayas. Most of the DTTBs (71%) are deployed in 5th and 6th class municipalities. Most of these municipalities were former DTTB recipients (82%). From 1993 to 2009, the retention rate is only 18% (81 of 450) and only 23% of the present DTTBs intend to stay with their LGUs. This paper also looked at program enablers and factors affecting the retention rate of DTTBs. This APP may provide inputs to the proposed policy amendment on the production, placement and utilization of the human resources for health and may be used by program managers in developing plan of implementation, and in promoting to stakeholders to generate support in terms of funding and advocacy to support legislations affecting HRH. This may also serve as a preliminary study for a more comprehensive evaluation of the DTTBP in the future.