Social justice is a matter of life and death. It affects the way people live, their consequent chance of illness, and their risk of premature death. We watch in wonder as life expectancy and good health continue to increase in parts of the world and in alarm as they fail to improve in others.
Health and social care organizations from Wales joined in the Welsh NHS Confederation’s 2016 Challenge Policy Forum and the published a document called “Ten actions required to improve health, social care and well-being in Wales", trying to establish their priorities in order to get a better system.
The ten priorities described are: long term vision, ensuring financing, planning workforce, person centred and integrated care, public health perspective, improve preventive measurements, creating a culture of honest and open communication with population, improving mental health support, ensuring equal access to health and social care and improving the use of technology.
The WHO has developed the Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT), a software application for use on desktop or laptop computers and mobile devices, to facilitate the assessment of within-country health inequalities. HEAT is organized around two main components:
Inequalities can be assessed using disaggregated data and summary measures that are visualized in a variety of interactive ways, including tables and graphs. Customized results can be exported and saved in different formats.
The WHO has developed the Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT), a software application for use on desktop or laptop computers and mobile devices, to facilitate the assessment of within-country health inequalities. HEAT is organized around two main components:
Inequalities can be assessed using disaggregated data and summary measures that are visualized in a variety of interactive ways, including tables and graphs. Customized results can be exported and saved in different formats.
This white paper provides guidance on how health care organizations can reduce health disparities related to racial or ethnic group, religion; socioeconomics status; gender; age; mental health; cognitive, sensory, or physical disability; sexual orientation or gender identity, geographic location; or other characteristics historically linked to discrimination or exclusion.
It includes:
-A framework, with five key components, for health care organizations to improve health equity in the communities they serve
- Guideance for measuring health equity
- A case study of one health care organization that has strategically integrated work to improve health equity throughout their system
- A self- assessment tool for health care organizations to gauge their current focus on and effort to improve health equity
Notwithstanding important contributions of the Triple Aim, uncristal enthusiasm regarding the implications of the framework may be leading to inconsistent use, particularly when apploed at the health system level, which goes beyond he original positioning of the framework as a strategic organizing principle to guide improvement initiatives at the organizational or local community level. This article identified uses of the Triple Aim that extended beyond its original intention to focus on uses at the whole health system level, to assess convergence and divergence with the original definition. They also attempted to identify consistencies in the way the Triple Aim was adapted for different contexts and settings.
Health policy and systems research (HPSR) has changed considerably over the last 20 years, but its main purpose remains to inform and influence health policies and systems. Whereas goals that underpin health systems have endured – such as a focus on health equity – contexts and priorities change, research methods progress, and health organisations continue to learn and adapt, in part by using HPSR. For HPSR to remain relevant, its practitioners need to re-think how health systems are conceptualised, to keep up with rapid changes in how we diagnose and manage disease and use information, and consider factors affecting people’s health that go well beyond healthcare systems. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent a shifting paradigm in human development by seeking convergence across sectors. They also offer an opportunity for HPSR to play a larger role, given its pioneering work on applying systems thinking to health, its focus on health equity ...
Community Health Workers (CHWs) are proven to be highly effective in low- and middle-income countries with many examples of successful large-scale programs. There is growing interest in deploying CHW programs in high-income countries to address inequity in healthcare access and outcomes amongst population groups facing disadvantage. This study is the first that examines the scope and potential value of CHW programs in Australia and the challenges involved in integrating CHWs into the health system. The potential for CHWs to improve health equity is explored.
People-centred health care (PCC) services are identified by the WHO as important building blocks towards universal health coverage. In 2016 the WHO formulated a comprehensive framework on integrated PCC services based on an international expert consultation. Yet, expert opinions may fail to recognize the needs of all health system stakeholders. Therefore, a consultation method that includes the health workforce and laypersons, can be instrumental to elaborate this framework more in-depth. This research sought to identify participants’ perspectives on policy options and interventions to achieve people-centred health care services from a multi stakeholder perspective.
The challenge of an ageing population is faced by many regions and countries in Europe, and integrated care is a recognised solution to it. Increasing the readiness and capacity of regions to be able to implement integrated care is crucial. In Scotland and in the Puglia region of Italy, a knowledge transfer exercise has been undertaken using the Scirocco model to do just that.
Although an emerging speciality in Africa, family medicine contributes significantly to African health systems. Leadership from family physicians can enable the delivery of high-quality primary health care that is accessible, comprehensive, coordinated, continuous and person-centred. This short report chronicles how family physicians from a university teaching hospital in Ibadan, Nigeria, adopted a health post located in a home for persons with mild physical and mental disabilities and changed it into a hub of comprehensive, holistic and person-centred care for residents and staff of the home, as well as individuals and families in the neighbouring communities and its environs.
World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day (WNTDD) will be celebrated on Sunday 30 January 2022. To mark this celebration, WHO is organizing a virtual event, calling on everyone to address the inequalities that characterize NTDs. WNTDD is an opportunity to re-energize the momentum to end the suffering from these 20 diseases that are caused by a variety of pathogens including viruses, bacteria, parasites, fungi and toxins. The day provides an opportunity to focus on the millions of people who have limited or no access to prevention, treatment and care services. Join us to celebrate the event on 26 January 2022 14:00–15:00 (CET). Registration link (https://who.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_vvzLo48nQlCzItEeVndeuA) Jo
Analysis of policy implementation for chronic disease in Belgium highlights the difficulties of launching experiments for integrated care in a health system with fragmented governance. It also entreats us to consider the inherent challenges of piloting integrated care for chronic disease. Sociomedical characteristics of chronic disease –political, social, and economic aspects of improving outcomes – pose distinct problems for pilot projects, particularly because addressing health inequity requires collaboration across health and social sectors and a long-term, life-course perspective on health. Drawing on recent US experience with demonstration projects for health service delivery reform and on chronic disease research, I discuss constraints of and lessons from pilot projects. The policy learning from pilots lies beyond their technical evaluative yield. Pilot projects can evince political and social challenges to achieving integrated chronic disease care, and can illuminate overlooked perspectives, such as those of community-based organizations (CBOs), thereby potentially extending the terms of policy ...
Patient-centered care lies at the center of the Joint Commission of Pharmacy Practitioners Pharmacists’ Patient Care Process (PPCP) and recognizes the pharmacist’s responsibility for the patient’s drug-related and health needs, concerns, and expectations as well as prioritizing the patient’s interests before all others. Person-centered care more explicitly expands the pharmacist’s understanding of the patient to a person with rights, knowledge, and experiences that extend outside of disease, illness, and pharmacotherapy. The Social Care Framework developed by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine provides a roadmap to how pharmacists can provide community-integrated care that is consistent with person-centeredness. Doing so can expand the pharmacist’s role and value in a time of community-integrated care transformation.
We live in a rapidly aging world, in which people who are age 60 and older outnumber children under the age of five. This book reveals large and growing gaps in care for older adults in countries at all income levels and shows how to leverage reforms for improving health outcomes for older adults and create healthier, more prosperous communities. Aimed at policy makers and other health and development stakeholders who want to promote healthier aging, Silver Opportunity compiles the latest evidence on care needs and gaps for aging populations. It argues that primary health care should be the cornerstone of integrated service delivery for older people, but primary health care systems must first build their capacity to respond to older people's health needs. It presents an original framework for policy action to advance primary health care-centered, integrated senior care; documents the experiences of pioneering countries in delivering community-based ...