Healthcare Systems

In this book, we invited 146 authors with expertise in health policy, systems design, management, research, or practice, from each of the countries included, to consider health reforms or systems improvements in their country or region. The resulting case studies, of 52 individual countries and five regional groupings, cover 152 countries or territories, or three-quarters of the world’s nations. Each chapter author was asked to think 5–15 years into the future and make a prediction on how their health system could be strengthened as a result of the successful unfolding of their case study.

The types of projects our authors have chosen to explicate into the future are wide-ranging. They vary from e-consultation services in Estonia, achieving universal health coverage in Argentina and Mexico, reforming long-term care in the Netherlands, reassessing care for the aging population and the frail elderly in Australia, streamlining the health system through Lean Thinking in Nigeria, using regulation to improve care in South Africa, developing a new accreditation model in Turkey, through to a critique of physician specialization in Russia and applying IT initiatives to improve care in China, Lebanon, Taiwan, Papua New Guinea, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela and Wales.

Chapter writers recognized that the improvement work they were doing was part of a moving target. There was general agreement that the effective use of limited resources and overcoming hurdles and constraints were crucial to enhancing health systems in order to deliver better care over the medium term. While some initiatives required considerable funding, many were relatively inexpensive. These case studies demonstrate ways in which fruitful application of partnerships and creativity can make considerable gains in strengthening healthcare delivery systems.