Health Equity: 05/24/12

Thursday, May 24, 2012

[EQ] Primary care: Today and tomorrow - Improving general practice by working differently

Primary care: Today and tomorrow
- Improving general practice by working differently

Deloitte UK Centre for Health Solutions report - 2012

Available online PDF [40p.] at: http://bit.ly/KGtTfF

“…..This report presents the Centre’s views on:

• the current and future role of general practice

• the main challenges faced by the general practice workforce

• a range of evidence based solutions.

.Some of the solutions are already being used by a number of innovative general practitioners, and others are ideas and insights into how the future workforce might adapt more effectively to the changing needs and expectations of their patients….

“….The increase in life expectancy has been accompanied by an increase in the number of people living with chronic ill health and has led to a significant increase in the demand for primary care.

The biggest single challenge for general practices, therefore, is the need to shift from treating episodic illness to working in partnership with patients and other providers to improve health, and treat people in the community more cost-effectively. Increased demand also requires practices to improve information and communication around diagnosis and treatment options, and develop shared decision-making and self-management strategies to tackle chronic conditions….”

Content
Foreword

Executive summary

Part 1. Introduction

Part 2. The provider challenges facing general practice

Part 3. The solutions – adopting new ways of working

Part 4. Working differently

Notes

* * *
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]
Washington DC USA

“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”.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PAHO/WHO Website
Equity List - Archives - Join/remove: http://listserv.paho.org/Archives/equidad.html
Twitter http://twitter.com/eqpaho

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 dispose of and delete this transmission.

Thank you.

[EQ] Five keys to improving research costing in low- and middle-income countries - ESSENCE

Five keys to improving research costing in low- and middle income countries

2012 - ESSENCE - harmonizing policies and practices of research funders – Good practice document series

Available online at: http://bit.ly/L4I0Kv

TDR, Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases executed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and co-sponsored by UNICEF, UNDP, the World Bank and WHO -ESSENCE Good practice document series

“…..Enhancing Support for Strengthening the Effectiveness of National Capacity Efforts (ESSENCE on Health Research) is a collaborative framework between funding agencies to scale up research capacity for health. It aims to improve the impact of investments in institutions and people, and provides enabling mechanisms that address needs and priorities within national strategies on research for health…...”

Contents

Introduction

KEY 1 Defining and categorizing direct and indirect costs

KEY 2 Determining indirect-cost rates

KEY 3 Institutional management of research grants

KEY 4 Developing relevant skills and competencies

KEY 5 Bridging the gaps between funders and research institutions

The way forward

A forum for shared learning

Contact: Dr Garry Aslanyan Manager, Portfolio Policy, WHO/TDR aslanyang@who.int

Thank you.

[EQ] Embedding of research into decision-making processes

Embedding of research into decision-making processes

“………this paper concerns the uptake of research evidence in policy decisions for health. It examines both conceptual paradigms and country case studies from the perspective of six WHO building blocks: service delivery, health workforce, information, medical products, financing, and governance….”

Adam D Koon, Devaki Nambiar, Krishna D Rao

Background paper commissioned by the Alliance for Health Policy and

Systems Research to develop the WHO Health Systems Research Strategy – 2012

Available online PDF [27p.] at: http://bit.ly/MDlmyb

“…..This study represents a nascent attempt to understand the issue of research use in decision making from the perspective of embeddedness of research institutions in policy making. According to the network analysis literature, the degree of embeddedness of an organization refers to its structural position in an organizational network

The greater its embededness or centrality in an organizational network, the greater an institution’s connectivity with other organizations in the network. This enables embedded organizations to be more immersed in the flow of information and resources than non-central organizations. In this study, we applied this idea of embeddedness to the context of research institutions (and their research) and the uptake of evidence in decision making for health.

Our findings suggest that multiple forces converge to create context-specific pathways through which research enters into the policymaking environment. Depending on the policy under consideration, Ministries of Health may call upon an intricate combination of actors for sourcing evidence. While proximity to a decision making core does have advantages, it is not the position of the institution within the network, but rather, the qualities that institution possesses that enable it to be embedded.

Four factors were hypothesized to influence embeddedness
- reputation,

- capacity,

- quality, and
- quantity of connections to decision makers. I
n addition to this, the policy environment was also expected to influence the uptake of research.

In the second phase of this study, we attempted to validate our conceptual model through qualitative research conducted with decision makers and researchers in seven countries. Through this process we garnered key insights about the creation of embedded research institutions, the processes by which ministries of health source research, qualities of embedded institutions, and features of the policy environment.

Decision Makers sourced evidence from research institutions in a variety of ways - leveraging personal networks, accessing peer reviewed publications, developing formal linkages with national statistics agencies, academic, or independent research institutions, or by assembling expert committees for a well-defined task….”

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Methods

2.1 Literature Review

2.2 Key-informant Interviews

3. Embeddedness & Health Research

3.1. Research Embeddedness through the lens of health systems building blocks

3.2 Conceptual framework for embeddedness in health research

3.3 Empirical examples of embeddedness in health research

4. Conclusion

Works Cited

KMC/2012/HSS
Twitter http://twitter.com/eqpaho

* * *
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]
Washington DC USA

“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”.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PAHO/WHO Website
Equity List - Archives - Join/remove: http://listserv.paho.org/Archives/equidad.html
Twitter http://twitter.com/eqpaho

Thank you.