The Patient-Centered Medical Home’s Impact on Cost and Quality: Annual Review of Evidence, 2014-15

The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) is a model of primary care that is patient-centred, comprehensive, coordinated, accessible and committed to quality and safety. In the PCMH, the primary care team coordinates care for patients and guides them in their journeys across the health care system.  In February 2016, the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative, a not-for-profit membership organization, published a review titled "The Patient-Centered Medical Home's Impact on Cost and Quality", which provides a summary of PCMH cost and utilisation outcomes in the United States. The review includes peer-reviewed studies, state government evaluations, industry reports and independent federal program evaluations published between October 2014 and November 2015.  According to the review, there is a clear trend showing that the PCMH leads to reductions in health care costs and/or unnecessary utilisation such as emergency department visits, inpatient hospitalizations and hospital re-admissions. The authors also discuss the impact of new developments ...

Strengthening performance-based financing as a health system approach for quality improvement

Over the last decade, a significant reduction of maternal and child mortality has been achieved in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This is largely attributable to the substantial improvement in access to essential reproductive, maternal and child health services. However, in some countries, expansion of health services has not resulted in the expected mortality reduction. Low quality of care (QoC) is an important cause of this discrepancy, and it calls for putting quality improvement on the global health agenda. As an approach to enhance QoC in LMICs, performance-based financing (PBF), which incentivizes health providers based on predetermined indicators, has been piloted or implemented in more than 30 countries. More importantly, PBF has been used as an important vehicle to catalyze health system reforms to enhance service delivery, including quality improvement (QI), in many countries.

This paper takes a system perspective to examine the current practice of PBF in strengthening health ...

Stakeholder Perceptions and Context of the Implementation of Performance-Based Financing in District Hospitals in Mali

To improve the performance of the healthcare system, Mali’s government implemented a pilot project of performance-based financing (PBF) in the field of reproductive health. It was established in the Koulikoro region. This research analyses the process of implementing PBF at district hospital (DH) level, something which has rarely been done in Africa.

Stakeholder Perceptions and Context of the Implementation of Performance-Based Financing in District Hospitals in Mali

To improve the performance of the healthcare system, Mali’s government implemented a pilot project of performance-based financing (PBF) in the field of reproductive health. It was established in the Koulikoro region. This research analyses the process of implementing PBF at district hospital (DH) level, something which has rarely been done in Africa.

Performance management in primary healthcare: Nurses’ experiences

The use of the performance management (PM) system is highly contested by public servants in South Africa, although its value as essential to the appraisal and management of staff is undeniable. Before considering the integration of a system or parts of a health system, a diagnosis must be made to assess how segmented it is. The vision of health professionals is essential to obtain a panoramic view of the situation.

The aim of study was to explore nurses’ perceptions and experiences of the PM system at primary healthcare (PHC) facilities in relation to the current health system’s reforms.