Friday, April 17, 2009

[EQ] Link to Web conference - Monitoring and Evaluation: Good practices in using DevInfo

Recording session - web link to Knowledge Sharing Event:

Meet the Author

Strengthening Country-Led M&E System

Good practices in using DevInfo

Organized by UNICEF CEE/CIS, and Pan American Health Organization PAHO/WHO

April 15th, 2009

Recording session web link to Knowledge Sharing Event

https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/jwsdetect/playback.jnlp?psid=2009-04-15.0344.M.399298597B8EFF0C2D865FF2DC2BE1.vcr

Agenda

Welcome

Rosina Salerno, WHO/PAHO Internal Oversight and Evaluation Services

Introduction and key questions

Marco Segone, Regional Chief, Monitoring and Evaluation, UNICEF Regional office for CEE/CIS,
and former IOCE Vice President

Presenters

DevInfo 6.0. A demand-driven and user-friendly data dissemination system

Kris Oswalt, President, CSF
http://devserver.paho.org/equity/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=4&Itemid=157

Good practices in using DevInfo in evidence-based policy making

Nicolas Pron, Global DevInfo Administrator

http://devserver.paho.org/equity/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=3&Itemid=157

Q&A from Participants

Moderator: Rosina Salerno WHO/PAHO Internal Oversight and Evaluation Services

Closing remarks

Marco Segone, Regional chief, monitoring and evaluation UNICEF Regional office CEE/CIS

Why?

Monitoring and evaluation has a strategic role to play in informing policy-making processes. The aim is to improve relevance, efficiency and effectiveness of policy reforms. Why then is monitoring and evaluation not playing its role to its full potential? What are the factors, in addition to the evidence, influencing the policy-making process and outcome? How can the uptake of evidence in policy-making be increased?

Country-led monitoring and evaluation systems may enhance evidence-based policy-making by ensuring national monitoring and evaluation systems are owned and led by the concerned countries. This facilitates the availability of evidence relevant to country-specific data needs to monitor policy reforms and national development goals, whilst at the same time, ensuring technical rigour through monitoring and evaluation capacity development.

This conference is part of the program “Meet the Author” where selected authors of evaluation books will be available to respond to your questions. The program was planned together with UNICEF and includes the participation of two major Global Evaluation Networks: IDEAS and IOCE.

The first virtual meeting with the editor of the UNICEF book, “Country-led monitoring and evaluation systems” was held in February 20, 2009, and drew an audience of 110 participants from all over the world. Building on the consensus for the initiative, PAHO, together with UNICEF, designed this program to enable meet the authors of evaluation books, sharing with them good practices and lessons learned on evaluation with a special attention to national and local M&E systems.

**Participants from all over the world to this event – map below **

* * *

This message from the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO/WHO, is part of an effort to disseminate
information Related to: Equity; Health inequality; Socioeconomic inequality in health; Socioeconomic
health differentials; Gender; Violence; Poverty; Health Economics; Health Legislation; Ethnicity; Ethics;
Information Technology - Virtual libraries; Research & Science issues. [DD/ KMC Area]

“Materials provided in this electronic list are provided "as is". Unless expressly stated otherwise, the findings
and interpretations included in the Materials are those of the authors and not necessarily of The Pan American
Health Organization PAHO/WHO or its country members”.
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[EQ] International travel and health

International travel and health

International Health Regulations Secretariat, Communicable Diseases

World Health Organization, 2009

Available online PDF [252p.] at: http://www.who.int/ith/ITH_2009.pdf

“….17 April 2009 -- The International travel and health provides guidance to medical and non-medical people on potential health risks for travellers and precautions to take. The new 2009 edition includes a chapter on psychological health, detailed maps of major infectious diseases and updated vaccine recommendations and schedules.

…..International travel is undertaken by large, and ever increasing, numbers of people for professional, social, recreational and humanitarian purposes. More people travel greater distances and at greater speed than ever before, and this upward trend looks set to continue. Travellers are thus exposed to a variety of health risks in unfamiliar environments. Most such risks, however, can be minimized by suitable precautions taken before, during and after travel. The purpose of this book to provide guidance on measures to prevent or reduce any adverse consequences for the health of travellers….”

Chapters

Preface

Chapter 1 [pdf 72kb] Health risks and precautions: general considerations

Chapter 2 [pdf 90kb] Mode of travel: health considerations

Chapter 3 [pdf 122kb] Environmental health risks

Chapter 4 [pdf 100kb] Injuries and violence

Chapter 5 [pdf 1.77Mb] Infectious diseases of potential risk for travellers

Chapter 6 [pdf 227kb] Vaccine-preventable diseases and vaccines

Chapter 7 [pdf 158kb] Malaria

Chapter 8 [pdf 72kb] Exposure to blood or other body fluids

Chapter 9 [pdf 46kb] Special groups of travellers

Chapter 10 [pdf 87kb] Psychological Health

Country list: yellow fever vaccination requirements and recommendations; and malaria situation [pdf 148kb]

Annexes [pdf 55kb]

* * * *
This message from the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO/WHO, is part of an effort to disseminate
information Related to: Equity; Health inequality; Socioeconomic inequality in health; Socioeconomic
health differentials; Gender; Violence; Poverty; Health Economics; Health Legislation; Ethnicity; Ethics;
Information Technology - Virtual libraries; Research & Science issues. [DD/ KMC Area]

“Materials provided in this electronic list are provided "as is".Unless expressly stated otherwise, the findings
and interpretations included in the Materials are those of the authors and not necessarily of The Pan American
Health Organization PAHO/WHO or its country members”.
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EQUITY List - Archives - Join/remove: http://listserv.paho.org/Archives/equidad.html

    IMPORTANT: This transmission is for use by the intended recipient and it may contain privileged, proprietary or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient or a person responsible for delivering this transmission to the intended recipient, you may not disclose, copy or distribute this transmission or take any action in reliance on it. If you received this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by email to infosec@paho.org, and please dispose of and delete this transmission. Thank you.

[EQ] A four phase development model for integrated care services in the Netherlands

A four phase development model for integrated care services in the Netherlands

Mirella MN Minkman*1, Kees TB Ahaus2 and Robbert Huijsman3

1, National Center of Excellence in Long-term care, Utrecht, the Netherlands,

2 University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business, Research Center on Healthcare Organization & Innovation, University Medical Center Groningenm,
3 Erasmus University Rotterdam Institute of Health Policy and Management, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

BMC Health Services Research 2009, 9:42 doi:10.1186/1472-6963-9-42

Available online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6963-9-42.pdf

Background: Multidisciplinary and interorganizational arrangements for the delivery of coherent integrated care are being developed in a large number of countries. Although there are many integrated care programs worldwide, the process of developing these programs and interorganizational collaboration is described in the literature only to a limited extent.

The purpose of this study is to explore how local integrated care services are developed in the Netherlands, and to conceptualize and operationalize a development model of integrated care.

Methods: The research is based on an expert panel study followed by a two-part questionnaire, designed to identify the development process of integrated care. Essential elements of integrated care, which were developed in a previous Delphi and Concept Mapping Study, were analyzed in relation to development process of integrated care.

Results: Integrated care development can be characterized by four developmental phases: the initiative and design phase; the experimental and execution phase; the expansion and monitoring phase; and the consolidation and transformation phase. Different elements of integrated care have been identified in the various developmental phases.

Conclusion: The findings provide a descriptive model of the development process that integrated care services can undergo in the Netherlands. The findings have important implications for integrated care services, which can use the model as an instrument to reflect on their current practices. The model can be used to help to identify improvement areas in practice. The model provides a framework for developing evaluation designs for integrated care arrangements. Further research is recommended to test the developed model in practice and to add international experiences.

“Materials provided in this electronic list are provided "as is".Unless expressly stated otherwise, the findings
and interpretations included in the Materials are those of the authors and not necessarily of The Pan American
Health Organization PAHO/WHO or its country members”.
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[EQ] Methodological problems in the use of indirect comparisons for evaluating healthcare interventions

Methodological problems in the use of indirect comparisons for evaluating healthcare interventions:
survey of published systematic reviews

Fujian Song, reader in research synthesis,1 Yoon K Loke, senior lecturer in clinical pharmacology,1 Tanya Walsh, lecturer in dental statistics,2 Anne-Marie Glenny, lecturer in evidence based oral care,2 Alison J Eastwood, senior research fellow,3 Douglas G Altman, professor and director4

1 Faculty of Health, University of East Anglia, Norwich

2 School of Dentistry, University of Manchester, Manchester

3 Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, University of York, York

4 Centre for Statistics in Medicine, Oxford

BMJ April 18, 2009;338:b1147 - doi:10.1136/bmj.b1147

Available online at: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/338/apr03_1/b1147

Abstract: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/338/apr03_1/b1147

“……The number of available healthcare interventions increases with time, reflecting advances in science and technology. For many clinical indications clinicians may have to choose among several competing interventions. In this era of evidence based decision making, relative effectiveness and cost effectiveness of different interventions need to be objectively and accurately assessed in clinical studies.

It has been accepted generally that well designed and implemented head to head randomised controlled trials provide the most rigorous and valid research evidence on the relative effects of different interventions.1 Evidence from head to head comparison trials is often limited or unavailable, however, and indirect comparison may therefore be necessary…..”

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate basic assumptions and other methodological problems in the application of indirect comparison in systematic reviews of competing healthcare interventions. Design Survey of published systematic reviews. Inclusion criteria Systematic reviews published between 2000 and 2007 in which an indirect approach had been explicitly used.

Data extraction Identified reviews were assessed for comprehensiveness of the literature search, method for indirect comparison, and whether assumptions about similarity and consistency were explicitly mentioned.

Results The survey included 88 review reports. In 13 reviews, indirect comparison was informal. Results from different trials were naively compared without using a common control in six reviews. Adjusted indirect comparison was usually done using classic frequentist methods (n=49) or more complex methods (n=18). The key assumption of trial similarity was explicitly mentioned in only 40 of the 88 reviews. The consistency assumption was not explicit in most cases where direct and indirect evidence were compared or combined (18/30). Evidence from head to head comparison trials was not systematically searched for or not included in nine cases.

Conclusions Identified methodological problems were an unclear understanding of underlying assumptions, inappropriate search and selection of relevant trials, use of inappropriate or flawed methods, lack of objective and validated methods to assess or improve trial similarity, and inadequate comparison or inappropriate combination of direct and indirect evidence. Adequate understanding of basic assumptions underlying indirect and mixed treatment comparison is crucial to resolve these methodological problems.

Appendix 1 PubMed search strategy

Appendix 2 Characteristics of identified reports

Appendix 3 Identified studies

References of included studies

“Materials provided in this electronic list are provided "as is".Unless expressly stated otherwise, the findings
and interpretations included in the Materials are those of the authors and not necessarily of The Pan American
Health Organization PAHO/WHO or its country members”.
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    IMPORTANT: This transmission is for use by the intended recipient and it may contain privileged, proprietary or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient or a person responsible for delivering this transmission to the intended recipient, you may not disclose, copy or distribute this transmission or take any action in reliance on it. If you received this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by email to infosec@paho.org, and please dispose of and delete this transmission. Thank you.