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This technical brief presents examples from the Africa Christian Health Associations Platform and its members’ efforts to strengthen human resources for health (HRH) and integrate FBOs into national health systems and the HRH community. The brief highlights achievements in selected areas, provides lessons learned, and offers seven key recommendations for furthering FBOs’ efforts. [from introduction]

The authors address the issue of governance in health from a critical standpoint, taking globalization as the core focus. They discuss the issue of governance in health based on the trend of stimulating world production/consumption in accordance with the interests of developed countries. [from abstract]

The objective of the prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (pMTCT) cascade analysis tool is to
provide frontline health managers at the facility level with the means to rapidly, independently and quantitatively
track patient flows through the pMTCT cascade, and readily identify priority areas for clinic-level improvement
interventions. [from abstract]

This study measures service quality management in a private hospital in Gauteng, South Africa. This was done by
determining the current standard of service quality management, identifying the gap between the value and the satisfaction of the service quality dimensions, as well as the influence of gender on the perception of service quality. [from abstract]

Definitions of fragile states focus on state willingness and capacity to ensure security and provide essential
services, including health. Conventional analyses and subsequent policies that focus on state-delivered essential services miss many developments in severely disrupted healthcare arenas. The research seeks to gain insights about the large sections of the health field left to evolve spontaneously by the absent or diminished state. ]from abstract]

In this qualitative descriptive study, we explored the perceived impact and sustainability of the first accredited
Paediatric Nursing Training Programme (PNTP) in Ghana, established in 2010 by a north-south Ghanaian-Canadian
partnership to address child health care access and quality issues in the country. [from abstract]

Quality of care can be significantly improved by engaging teams of frontline workers to identify problems and find local solutions for those problems. Based on the results achieved in Kunduz, Balkh, and Kabul, the collaborative improvement work was expanded from 2010–2012 to seven more provinces. The results achieved on the ground also led the MoPH to establish a unit for quality and a national health care quality improvement strategy for Afghanistan. [from abstract]

The increasing number of people requiring HIV treatment in South Africa calls for efficient use of its human
resources for health in order to ensure optimum treatment coverage and outcomes. This paper describes an innovative
public-private partnership model which uses private sector doctors to treat public sector patients and ascertains the
model’s ability to maintain treatment outcomes over time. [from abstract]

A new approach to the measurement of service delivery is introduced. The Service Delivery Underperformance Index (SDUI)
adapts the Alkire and Foster (2011) methodology used for poverty measurement to measure the underperformance, or multiple inadequacies, in service delivery. [from abstract]

Health care workers are exposed to different kinds of occupational hazards due to their day to day activities. The most common occupational exposure like body fluids are a potential risk of transmission of blood born infection like human immunodeficiency virus. [from abstract]

Indonesia launched the national health insurance program - Jaminan Kesehatan National (JKN) - on January 1, 2014, and aims to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) by 2019. Achieving UHC means not only increasing the number of people covered but also expanding the benefits package and ensuring financial protection. Although the JKN benefits package is comprehensive, a key challenge related to the capacity to deliver the promised services is ensuring the availability, distribution, and quality of human resources for health (HRH). [from abstract]

This paper focuses on the shortage in health workforce, its causes and its consequences.[from introduction]

This article analyzes community health workers’ (CHW) capacities for empathic service within an AIDS treatment program in Addis Ababa. I show how CHWs’ capacities to build relationships with stigmatized people, reconcile family disputes, and confront death draw on a constellation of values, desires, and emotions encouraged by CHWs’ families and religious teachings. I then examine the ways in which the capacities of CHWs were valued by the
institutions that deployed them.

In 2003, the Government of Ethiopia launched the Health Extension Programme and introduced a new cadre, health extension workers (HEWs), to improve access to care in rural communities. In 2013, to inform the government’s plans for HEWs to take on an enhanced role in community-based newborn care, a time and motion study was conducted to understand the range of HEW responsibilities and how they allocate their time across health and non-health activities. [from abstract]

This study aims to design three future scenarios for Portuguese community pharmacists, recognizing the changing environment as an opportunity to develop the role that community pharmacists may play in the Portuguese health system. [from abstract]

The purpose of the paper is provide a brief review of the evolution of nursing education in the United States and globally, describe the current and projected state of nursing education, and discuss some pressing challenges educators face as they strive to meet the charge to prepare nurses to care for more complex patients situated in ever-changing health-care systems. [from abstract]

This report brings together 10 in-depth studies on different aspects of Japan’s UHC [Universal Healthcare Coverage] experience, using a common framework for analysis focused on the political economy of UHC reform, and the policies and strategies for addressing challenges in health financing and human resources for health. Japan’s commitment to UHC played a key role in the country’s economic recovery after World War second, and helped ensure that the benefits of economic growth were shared equitably across the population. [from abstract]

There are various socio-cultural issues/obstacles in prevention of HIV-AIDS in high risk group for e.g., gender inequality, power inequalities and male dominance; condom use believed to be in conflict with the cultural importance for procreation; poverty, illiteracy, increase in migrant population and unemployment; poor knowledge and awareness of reproductive and sexual health and sexuality; emergence of new urban sub-culture and physical or mental abuse at a young age.

The world is witnessing the unprecedented unfolding of the West African Ebola epidemic. The epidemic could have major ramifications for global public health in ways that no other modern infectious disease has, perhaps including AIDS, and can be viewed as a “Black Swan” event. What we call here a Black Swan (and capitalize it) is an event with the following three attributes. First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expecta- tions, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility.

While the Millennium Development Goals focused on redressing extreme poverty and its antecedents for people living in developing countries, the post-2015 agenda seeks to redress inequity worldwide, regardless of a country’s development status. Furthermore, to rectify the UN’s top-down approach toward the Millennium Development Goals’ formulation, widespread negotiations are underway that seek to include the voices of people and communities from around the globe to ground each post-2015 development goal.

Achieving health goals in a context of deep-rooted inequality and marginalization requires going beyond the simple expansion of health services and working with developing trusting relationships between health service providers and community members. Involving community members in decision-making processes that shape policies will contribute to a
larger process of community empowerment and democratization. [from abstract]

The importance of health policy and systems research and analysis (HPSR?+?A) has been increasingly recognised, but it is still unclear how most effectively to strengthen the capacity of the different organisations involved in this field. Universities are particularly crucial but the expansive literature on capacity development has little to offer the unique needs of HPSR?+?A activity within universities, and often overlooks the pivotal contribution of capacity assessments to capacity strengthening. [from abstract]

The study observed the impact of an experimental supportive intervention to India’s malaria control program by location on the individual level. There are various possible reasons that account for the observed divergence across districts. [from abstract]

This is a review of the health financing situation in the Republic of Gabon. The book reviews the situation in the country under the lens of the principles of health financing: revenue mobilization for health, risk pooling, and purchasing services. [from abstract]

The goals of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) are to ensure that all people can access quality health services, to safeguard all people from public health risks, and to protect all people from impoverishment due to illness, whether from out-of-pocket payments for health care or loss of income when a household member falls sick. [from resource]

Taking a perspective of frontline health workers as internal clients within health systems, this study explored how perceived injustice in policy and organizational matters influence frontline health worker motivation and the consequent effect on workers’ attitudes and performance in delivering maternal and neonatal health care in public hospitals. [from abstract]

To improve monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of health programs in Botswana, 51 recent university graduates with no experience in M&E were recruited and provided with on-the-job training and mentoring to develop a new cadre of health worker: the district M&E officer. Three years after establishment of the cadre, an assessment was conducted to document achievements and lessons learnt. [from abstract]

We explore the current status of this area in the research community. E-health gives us an introduction to why we are trying to introduce information and communication technology’s (ICT’s) in order to improve health care. [adapted from abstract]

Given the global health worker crisis, now more than ever there is a critical need to improve the productivity of the existing health workforce and maximize service delivery efficiencies to ensure quality family planning/reproductive health (FP/RH), HIV and AIDS, maternal and child health, and other health services as well as further progress towards universal health coverage. This course explores some basic concepts of health workforce productivity. [from resource]

This article presents a South African case study of an intervention to address conflict in roles and responsibilities between multiple actors supporting service delivery at the local level, and explores the broader insights this experience generates about the nature of local health system governance. [from abstract]