Achieving Health Equity: A Guide for Health Care Organizations

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 ...

Community health center provider ability to identify, treat and account for the social determinants of health: a card study

The social determinants of health (SDH) are conditions that shape the overall health of an individual on a continuous basis. As momentum for addressing social factors in primary care settings grows, provider ability to identify, treat and assess these factors remains unknown. Community health centers care for over 20- million of America´s highest risk populations. This study at three centers evaluates provider ability to identify, treat and code for the SDH.

The results suggest simple methods of identification may be sufficient. The addition of searchable codes and reimbursements may improve the way social factors are addressed for individuals and ...

Understanding the role of community hospitals: an analysis of experiences in five countries

A policy focus on moving heathcare closer to people´s homes has led to renewed interest in community hospitals and their potential role in delivering more integrated care at local level, but models and approaches differ across countries. 

This study explores the policy drivers behind the implementation or advancement of these models; their function and role within the wider system of service provision; and the degree to which community hospitals contribute to enhanced integration of service delivery and benefit the population. 

How do we know? An assessment of integrated community case management data quality in four districts of Malawi

The World Health Organization contracted annual data quality assessments of Rapid Access Expansion (RAcE) proyects to review integrated community case management (iCCM) data quality and the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system for iCCM, adn to suggest ways to improve data quality. 

This data quality assessment illuminates where an otherwise strong M&E system for iCCM fails to ensure some aspects of data quality. Prioritizing data management with documented protocols, additional training and approaches to create efficient supervision practices may improve iCCM data quality. 

Patient-Centered Care and People-Centered Health Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa: Why So Little of Something So Badly Needed?

Patient–centered care (PCC) is increasingly recognized as a key dimension of quality healthcare, but unfortunately remains poorly implemented in practice. This paper explores the current state of PCC in sub-Saharan Africa and potential barriers to its implementation, with a focus on public first line health services. They develop an analytical framework based on expert knowledge, field experience, and a conceptual literature review. Factors contributing to the (lack of) implementation of PCC are structured in three distinct but interacting layers. The first layer encompasses factors that influence and shape the performance of providers.  The training of health workers is key ...

Zero to 50,000 — The 20th Anniversary of the Hospitalist

Twenty years ago, were describe the emergence of a new type of specialist that is called a "Hospitalist". Since then, the number of hospitalists has grown from a few hundred to more  than 50.000- making this new field substantially larger than any subspecialty of internal medicine, about the same size as pediatrics, and in fact larger than any specialty except general internal medicine and family medicine. Approximately 75% of U.S hospitals, including all highly ranked academic health centers, now have hospitalists. The field´s rapid growth has both reflected and contributed to the evolution of clinical practice over ...

New care models. Emerging innovations in governance and organisational form

Because the vanguards have shown just how important is to build collaborative relationships between the organisations and leaders involved in developing new care models as well as the technical elements; This report looks at the different approaches being taken by MCP (multispecialty community provider) and PACS (primary and acute care system) vanguards to contracting, governance and other organisational infrastructure. It focuses on development at five sites: Dudley, Sandwell and West Birmingham, Salford; Northumberland; and South Somerset. 

Substitution of Hospital Care with Primary Care: Defining the Conditions of Primary Care Plus

The aim of this study is to analise barriers and facilitators in substituting hospital care with primary care to define preconditions for successful implementation.  So this study was part of a mixed methods study on the feasibility of the Primary Care Plus intervention which was conducted at the pioneer site Blue Care. In this descriptive study, they applied a qualitive design. Data regarding process information was collected through interviews with involved general practitioners and medical specialists and through notes from all meetings with various working groups to identify barriers and facilitators and proposed solutions in order to formulate preconditions for ...

Self-perception of leadership styles and behaviour in primary health care

The concept of leadership has been studied in various disciplines and from different theoretical approaches. 

In the primary health care (PHC) setting, managers´leadership style is defined as a set of acttitudes, behaviours, beliefs and values. The objetives of this study were to describe and learn about the self-perception of behaviours and leadership style among PHC managers; to determine the influence of the leadership style on job satisfaction, efficiency and willingness to work in a team; and to determine the relationship between transformational and transactional styles according age, gender, profession and the type of organization. 

Integrating a palliative approach into the management of chronic, life-threatening diseases: Who, How and When?

Palliative care has a great deal to offer individuals and families faced with chronic, life-threatening illnesses. Medical advances means that many people will live many  years with these illnesses; however, most will eventually die of these diseases  and should have the right and support to make  informed decisions about their care at the end-of-life. rather than dimming people’s hope, frankdiscussions about the prognosis and trajectory of these illnesses can help people enhance theirquality of both living and dying with these diseases.

Over the past 15 years, canada has made progress in providing high quality palliative care —particularly in the ...