J of Pharm Policy and Pract 14, 27 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40545-021-00309-8
For humanitarian organisations to respond effectively to complex crises, they require access to up-to-date evidence-based guidance. The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the importance of updating global guidance to context-specific and evolving needs in humanitarian settings. Our study aimed to under...stand the use of evidence-based guidance in humanitarian responses during COVID-19. Primary data collected during the rapidly evolving pandemic sheds new light on evidence-use processes in humanitarian response.
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Community health workers (CHWs) play a vital role in health service delivery, especially in countries with less resilient health systems. During any outbreak CHWs are relied on to help control the spread. However, they are often the last in line to receive necessary health products and protective eq...uipment, which affects their ability to safely serve their communities.
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This World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) joint guidelines production aims at harnessing the contribution of employers and workers towards the control of TB. It covers all the practical steps involved in establishing TB control activities, including (for la...rge employers) starting and running a workplace TB control programme. They are intended for use in all countries in which TB incidence is high and the target audience for the guidelines includes employers, employee organizations, NTP managers, and agencies providing technical support for TB control.
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"Achieving, maintaining and improving accuracy, timeliness and reliability are major challenges for health laboratories. Countries worldwide committed themselves to build national capacities for the detection of, and response to, public health events of international concern when they decided to eng...age in the International Health Regulations implementation process. Only sound management of quality in health laboratories will enable countries to produce test results that the international community will trust in cases of international emergency. This handbook is intended to provide a comprehensive reference on Laboratory Quality Management System for all stakeholders in health laboratory processes, from management, to administration, to bench-work laboratorians. This handbook covers topics that are essential for quality management of a public health or clinical laboratory. They are based on both ISO 15189 and CLSI GP26-A3 documents"--Page 7.
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Health in All Policies: A Guide for State and Local Governments was created by the Public Health Institute, the California Department of Public Health, and the American Public Health Association in response to growing interest in using collaborative approaches to improve population health by embedd...ing health considerations into decision-making processes across a broad array of sectors. The Guide draws heavily on the experiences of the California Health in All Policies Task Force and incorporates information from the published and gray literature and interviews with people across the country.
The guide was developed through funding from the American Public Health Association and The California Endowment.
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The Guide to operationalize HIV viral load testing HIV presents 60 lessons learnt from the project in a systemic approach including: viral load strategy, laboratories, procurement and supply management, patient care and economy.
Many low-resource settings have a shortage of physicians and health workers. (1) In order to provide patient-centred continuous care more effectively, primary care systems can include team-based care strategies in their clinic workflows and protocols. Team-based care uses multidisciplinary teams (wh...ich may involve new staff, or the shifting of tasks among existing staff). Teams can include patients themselves, primary care physicians, and other allied health professionals, such as nurses, pharmacists, counsellors, social workers, nutritionists, community health workers, or others. Teams reduce the burden on physicians by utilizing the skills of trained health workers. Strong evidence shows that team-based care is effective in improving hypertension control among patients in a cost-effective way. (2) Some amount of task shifting/team-based care is already taking place in many settings; this module provides further guidance on how to maximize this approach for greater impact.
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Monitoring is a crucial element in any successful programme. It is important to
know if health care facilities – and ultimately countries – are meeting the agreed
goals and objectives for preventing and managing cardiovascular diseases (CVD).
Monitoring is the on-going collection, management ...and use of information to
assess whether an activity or programme is proceeding according to plan and/
or achieving defined targets. Not all outcomes of interest can be monitored. Clear
outcomes must be identified that relate to the most important changes expected to result from the project and to what is realistic and measurable within the timescale of the project. Once these outcomes have been articulated, indicators can be chosen that best measure whether the desired outcomes are being met.
To allow progress to be monitored, this module provides a set of indicators on
CVD management. Agreeing on a set of indicators allows countries to compare
progress in CVD management and treatment across different districts or
subnational jurisdictions, as well as at a facility level, identify where performance
can be improved, and track trends in implementation over time. Monitoring
these indicators also helps identify problems that may be encountered so that
implementation efforts can be redirected.
This module starts from the collection of data at facility level, which is then
“transferred up” the system: facility-level data are aggregated at subnational level
to produce reports that allow tracking of facility and subnational performance over time and allow for comparison among facilities. National-level data are obtained through population-based surveys.
Implementing a monitoring system requires action at many levels. At national and
subnational levels, staff can determine how best to integrate data elements into
existing data collection systems – such as the routine service-delivery data that are collected through facility-level Health Management Information Systems (HMIS).
In the facility setting, personnel must be aware of what data are needed. Sample
data-collection tools are included, recognizing that countries use different datamanagement systems for HMIS, so the CVD monitoring tools will be adapted to work with the HMIS system being used by the country, such that the indicators can be collected with minimal disruption/work to existing systems and tools
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