Journal Special Issue
Measuring quality of care
The United Nations sustainable development goal (SDG) 3 seeks “to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all and at all ages”. To build healthcare systems that were able to progress towards the millennium development goals, many countries...
Journal Article
Quality of care
Part of Journal Special Issue
Measuring quality of care
Working Paper
Developing global indicators for quality of maternal and newborn care
Objective: To assess the feasibility of applying the World Health Organization’s proposed 15 indicators of quality of care for maternal and newborn health at health-facility level in low- and middle-income settings. Methods: Six of the indicators are...
Working Paper
Health Shocks and Coping Strategies
The objectives of the study are three-fold: to investigate who are vulnerable to welfare loss from health shocks, what are the household responses to cope with the economic burden of health shocks and if policy responses like state health insurance...
Working Paper
Poor Health Reporting
Researchers often rely on household survey data to investigate health disparities and the incidence and prevalence of illness. These self-reported health measures are often biased due to information asymmetry or differences in reference groups. Using...
Journal Article
Improving health-care quality in resource-poor settings
Improvements in health-care quality can contribute to healthier populations. However, many global and national health strategies are not sufficiently considering the issues of measuring and improving health-care quality in lowresource settings. The...
Journal Article
Assessing the quality of primary care in Haiti
Objective To develop a composite measure of primary care quality and apply it to Haiti’s primary care system. Methods Using the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative’s framework, we defined four domains of primary care service delivery: (i)...
Journal Article
Evaluation of a social franchising and telemedicine programme and the care provided for childhood diarrhoea and pneumonia, Bihar, India
Objective To evaluate the impact on the quality of the care provided for childhood diarrhoea and pneumonia in Bihar, India, of a large-scale, social franchising and telemedicine programme – the World Health Partners’ Sky Program. Methods We...
Journal Article
Nurse-led HIV services and quality of care at health facilities in Kenya, 2014–2016
Objective To develop a novel measure to characterize human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) programme quality at health facilities in Kenya and explore its associations with patient- and facility-level characteristics. Methods We developed a composite...
Journal Article
Understanding and measuring quality of care
Existing definitions and measurement approaches of quality of health care often fail to address the complexities involved in understanding quality of care. It is perceptions of quality, rather than clinical indicators of quality, that drive service...
Journal Article
Implementation research to improve quality of maternal and newborn health care, Malawi
Objective To evaluate the impact of a performance-based financing scheme on maternal and neonatal health service quality in Malawi. Methods We conducted a non-randomized controlled before and after study to evaluate the effects of district- and...
Journal Article
Observations of infection prevention and control practices in primary health care, Kenya
Objective To assess compliance with infection prevention and control practices in primary health care in Kenya. Methods We used an observational, patient-tracking tool to assess compliance with infection prevention and control practices by 1680...
Journal Article
Improving water, sanitation and hygiene in health-care facilities, Liberia
Problem The lack of proper water and sanitation infrastructures and poor hygiene practices in health-care facilities reduces facilities’ preparedness and response to disease outbreaks and decreases the communities’ trust in the health services...
Working Paper
User Charges for Health Care
The paper reviews the theoretical basis for the application of user fees in the public health sector in low-income countries with particular reference to the special characteristics of medical care as a commodity. The general equilibrium efficiency...
Working Paper
Hospital Efficiency in Sub-Saharan Africa
This study evaluates the technical efficiency and productivity of a sample of public sector hospitals in three provinces of South Africa using the non- parametric techniques of data envelopment analysis (DEA) and DEA-based Malmquist productivity...
Working Paper
Health Status and Health Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa
This paper discusses the main changes in infant, child and maternal mortality which have occurred over 1960-1995 in Sub-Saharan Africa and analyses the main factors responsible for the observed shifts in these health trends. To do so, the paper...
Book
Social Provision in Low-Income Countries
During recent years, provision of key social services in low-income countries has been affected by adverse macroeconomic conditions and by radical changes in economic thinking. For example, the welfarist approach, which gives prominence to the state...
Working Paper
Measurement and Explanation of Inequality in Health and Health Care in Low-Income Settings
This paper describes approaches to the measurement and explanation of income-related inequality and inequity in health care financing, health care utilization and health and considers the applicability and the feasibility of these methods in low...