Enhancing governance and health system accountability for people centered healthcare: an exploratory study of community scorecards in Afghanistan

BACKGROUND:

The premise of patient-centered care is to empower patients to become active participants in their own care and receive health services focused on their individual needs and preferences. Afghanistan has evidenced enormous gains in coverage and utilization, but the quality of care remains suboptimal, as evidenced in the balanced scorecard (BSC) performance assessments. In the United States and throughout Africa and Asia, community scorecards (CSC) have proved effective in improving accountability and responsiveness of services. This study represents the first attempt to assess CSC feasibility in a fragile context (Afghanistan) through joint engagement of service providers and community members in the design of patient-centered services with the objective of assessing impact on service delivery and perceived quality of care.

METHODS:

Six primary healthcare facilities were randomly selected in three provinces (Bamyan, Takhar and Nangarhar) and communities in their catchment area were selected for the study. Employing a multi-stakeholder strategy ...

How can we help people manage their own health?

It is an initiative of the NHS Leeds West looking for introduce¡ing a new way to help people look after their own health. Health coaching aims to give people the knowledge and skills to take control of their long term conditions. The tweet hcat will be hosted by @NHSLeedsWest using the hashtag #ManagingHealth on Tuesday 22 of March. 

4 Steps to Sustaining Improvement in Health Care

Leading health care organizations recognize that improving care isn´t enough; having a systematic approach to sustaining improvement is equally important.

To learn how to build systems that sustain improvement, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement studied health care organizations that were able to achieve standout results and ten build on them- organizations such as Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City; Saskatoon Health Region in Saskatchewan, Canada; and Virginia Mason Health System in Seattle. These high-performing health systems affered a key insight: To sustain change, you need a strong strategy for engaging and standardizing the work of frontline managers. From their efforts, they derived four steps on how to get started with introducing new standard work processes for point-of-care staff. 

Integrated Care: A Pill for All Ills?

There is an increasing policy emphasis on the integration of care, both within the healthcare sector and also between the health and social care sectors, with the simple aim of ensuring that individuals get the right care, in the right place, at the right time. However, implementin this simple aim si rather more complex. In this editorial, they seek to make sense of this complexity and ask: what does integrated care mean in practice? What are the mechanims by which it is expected to achieve its aim? And what is the nature of the evidence base around the outcomes delivered?

Integrating safety concepts in health and social care

Keeping individuals safe from harm and exploitation is a clearly articulated goal within both the health and social care sectors. Two key concepts associated with achieving this common aim are safety and safeguarding. The purpose of this paper is to critically appraise the differences in safety terminology used in health and social care, including opportunities and challenges for greater integration of safety systems across health and social care in England. 

The House of Care in Scotland

Scotland´s House of Care programme aims to facilitate a fundamental shift in the relationship between person and professional, so that the person is in the driving seat of their health and social care, with self management at the heart of it.

This approach supports and enables people to articulate their own needs and decide on their own priorities, through a process of joint decision making, goal setting and action planning. 

Professional Identity Crisis in the Integrated Care Era

This poster reviews and summarize literature on the history of counseling psycology in integrated health care. Next, it will make a case for the necessity of including counseling psychologists´ meaningful contribution to integrated care. Then, using counseling psychology literature, it will demonstrate how integrated health care is consistent with our professional identity as counseling psychologists should be mindful while in the integrated care settings.

Barriers to, and opportunities for, palliative care development in the Eastern Mediterranean Region

The 22 countries of WHO´s Eastern Mediterranean Region are experiencing an increase in the burden of non-communicable deseases (NCDs), including cancer. Of the six WHO regions, the Eastern Mediterranean Region is projected to have the greatest increase in cancer incidence in the next 15 years. With increasing numbers of deaths from cancer, palliative care should be available to relieve suffering in patients with advance desease and at the end of life. However, in the Eastern Mediterranean Reion, the palliative care available is variable and inconsistent. 

Equity in access to care in the era of health system reforms in Turkey

The aim of this study was to evaluate access to healthcare from an equity perspective on the way toward Universal Health Coverage in Turkey. In order to  The country representative data from 2006 to 2013 Turkey Income and Living Conditions Surveys were analyzed. Private household residents aged fifteen and older were asked for self-reported unmet need for medical care in the past twelve months. 

Primary healthcare policy implementation in the Eastern Mediterranean region: Experiences of six countries.

Primary healthcare (PHC) is essential for equitable access and cost-effective healthcare. This makes PHC a key factor in the global strategy for universal health coverage (UHC). Implementing PHC requires an understanding of the health system under prevailing circumstances, but for most countries, no data are available.
This paper describes and analyses the health systems of Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Qatar, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates, in relation to PHC.

Clinical leadership and integrated primary care: A systematic literature review

As numbers of chronically ill patients with complex healthcare needs are increasing, primary care professionals will be challenged to deliver integrated care. Integrated care is about ‘delivering seamless care for patients with complex long-term problems cutting across multiple services, providers and settings.
Leaders are needed to address healthcare changes essential for implementation of integrated primary care. What kind of leadership this needs, which professionals should fulfil this role and how these leaders can be supported remains unclear.

Care coordination in the health-care service delivery: an elderly care perspective

The purpose of this study is to assess the relationship between patient-centricity, care coordination and delivery of quality care for older people with multiple chronic conditions. Care coordination is defined as a process where physicians, nurses and allied professionals work together to clarify responsibilities, care objectives, treatment plans and discharge plans for delivery of unified care. Patient-centricity is defined as an approach of delivering quality care to patients that focuses on creating a positive experience for them.