Managing mixed health systems: the role of evidence
While it’s clear that much more evidence is needed to guide decision making in health systems, there is disagreement about the questions we should be asking and the types of …
Course: Health Systems Strengthening
Private sector contributions
What patterns can we observe in the complex dynamics of mixed health systems? In this week we have already looked at some findings within the Lancet series on the private …
How to intervene in health markets
How can we intervene in health markets to achieve health system goals, particularly equity? In the previous step you saw that there are a number of regulatory approaches that can …
The role of the private sector in universal health coverage
Much of the debate about the private sector focuses on its own activities and their efficiency, effectiveness, quality, and distribution. But this debate misses the most important point. What are …
The Private Sector’s Role in Healthcare in the Asia-Pacific Region
In most East Asian and Pacific countries, the private sector provides a very significant proportion of health services to the poor. This could be “good” (because the private sector is …
The role of the private sector in the health system
In your setting, are there any examples of ‘mixing’ of types of health financing and service provision (for example, publicly-funded privately-provided services, or privately-funded public services)? Please comment below.
The experience of health care in mixed health systems
There are several characteristics of mixed health systems in low and middle incomes countries that are driven in part by consumer preferences, their perceptions of the quality of services offered …
Public-private mix in health systems
In week four we looked at private and public financing of health care, and recognised that both types of funding exist in almost all health systems. Of course, many health …
Looking at approaches to quality improvement at the national level: the example of Ethiopia
So, after looking at the frameworks, the tools available for measuring quality and the processes involved in improving quality, let’s see how this is translated into national policy. In this …
Quality improvement initiatives: the case of the sick newborn
In 2018 an excellent review article was published, summarising all the strategies that have been used to improve the quality of care of newborns. As you would remember, newborn mortality …
Improving quality of care
Kris summarised the quality bottlenecks into two domains: provider competency and provider effort and attitudes. Yet sometimes, health workers might have little power to change how they are managed by …
Where does quality of care fit with health systems strengthening?
2018 was the year of reports on quality of care with the publication of three very comprehensive documents: Delivering quality health services: a global imperative for universal health coverage The …
Discussion on quality of care and the Universal Health Coverage agenda
Health planners often encounter this dilemma: Do we try to achieve universal health coverage (UHC), or try to improve quality? Kris, in this discussion, has highlighted a contrasting risk: that …
Data sources for measuring quality of care
One of the challenges of measuring quality care is data availability, as we mentioned earlier this week. Recently, the Health Data Collaborative at WHO reported that health workers spend 33% …
Approaches and tools to measure and monitor quality of care
Not surprisingly, the approaches to measure quality vary in their complexity, depending on whether you are monitoring a quality assurance process within a health facility, implementing a quality improvement program …
