BACKGROUND Health systems in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are in urgent need of improvement. The private health sector is a major provider of care in the region and it will remain a significant actor in the future. Any efforts by SSA governments to improve health systems performance therefore has to account for the private health sector. Regional and international actors increasingly recognize impo...

There is currently considerable discussion between governments, international agencies, bilateral donors and advocacy groups on whether user fees levied at government health facilities in poor countries should be abolished. It is claimed that this would lead to greater access for the poor and reduce the risks of catastrophic health expenditures if all other factors remained constant, though oth...

BACKGROUND Poor quality of health services and socio-cultural dynamics may severely limit utilization of health services. Facility health committees were established in several states in northern Nigeria to reduce these barriers. The committees were charged with mobilizing communities, improving quality of health services, and promoting utilization of maternal and child health services. This st...

A method to monitor communicable diseases based on health records is proposed. The method is applied to health facility records of malaria incidence in Uganda. This disease represents a threat for approximately 3.3 billion people around the globe. We use Gaussian processes with vector-valued kernels to analyze time series components individually. This method allows not only removing the effect ...

This paper presents a new technique to adaptively measure the current performance levels of a health system and based on these decide on optimal resource allocation strategies. Here we address the specific problem of staff scheduling in real-time in order to improve patient satisfaction by dynamically predicting and controlling waiting times by adjusting staffing levels. We consider the cost of...

QUALITY PROBLEM OR ISSUE When the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan began reconstructing the health system in 2003, it faced serious challenges. Decades of war had severely damaged the health infrastructure and the country's ability to deliver health services. INITIAL ASSESSMENT A national health resources assessment in 2002 revealed huge structural and r...

In the context of global COVID-19 pandemic, fast and equitable distribution effective vaccines worldwide is one challenges faced by international institutions in charge, as equity vaccine supply has not yet been achieved. Our paper explains current state ethical research on allocation, focusing COVAX Facility established WHO, acting distributor. The article presents a detailed analysis first ye...

BACKGROUND Although there is a general agreement on the importance of antenatal care to improve the maternal and perinatal health, little is known about its importance to improve health facility delivery in developing countries. The objective of this study was to assess the association of antenatal care with birth in health facility. METHODS A systematic review with meta-analysis of Mantel-Ha...

Three types of fuzzy random programming for capacitated location-allocation problem with fuzzy random demands are proposed according to different criteria, including the expected value model, chanceconstrained programming and dependent-chance programming. Finally, integrating the network simplex algorithm, fuzzy random simulation and genetic algorithm, a hybrid intelligent algorithm is produced...

background and objectives: today, management is one of the most important factors in hospital effectiveness and performance. the objective of this study was to assess the management skills of administrators in hospitals of tehran university of medical sciences and to identify how these skills are related to effective management.   methods: a cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out o...