Historically, the Israeli health care system has been considered a high-performance system, providing universal, affordable, high-quality care to all residents. However, a decline in the ratio of physicians to population that reached a modern low in 2006, an approximate ten-percentage-point decline in the share of publicly financed health care between 1995 and 2009, and legislative mandates tha...

BACKGROUND The presence of a large informal healthcare sector in many low- and middle-income countries poses both challenges and opportunities for achieving a people-centered health system. However, few studies have considered how informal providers may fit into a people-centered health systems approach. We examine the self-described roles and motivations of informal medicine vendors and public...

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 provided. APPROACH To improve water and sanitation infrastructures and hygiene practices, the Liberian health ministry held multistakeholder meetings t...

BACKGROUND Little has been done to ensure that the foods sold within health care facilities promote healthy lifestyles. Policies to improve school nutrition environments can serve as models for health care organizations. OBJECTIVE This study was designed to assess the healthfulness of foods sold in health care facility vending machines as well as how health care organizations are using polici...

OBJECTIVES To assess the quality of sexually transmitted infections (STI) care in health care facilities in Abidjan attended by female sex workers. METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted in June 2000 in the 29 health care facilities and 10 pharmacies, which were reported as points of first encounter for STI care by female sex workers in a previous study on health seeking behaviour. Eva...

to determine the coverage rate, timeliness and quality of ante-natal care in rural areas under the coverage of health houses in west azerbaijan province, 30 health houses (hh) were randomly selected out of 731 hh in the province. in each hh, using the method of lot quality assurance sampling (lqas) 28 women having recently born babies was selected. data were collected using check-list for facil...

BACKGROUND Health service fees constitute substantial barriers for women seeking childbirth and postnatal care. In an effort to reduce health inequities, the government of Kenya in 2006 introduced the output-based approach (OBA), or voucher programme, to increase poor women's access to quality Safe Motherhood services including postnatal care. To help improve service quality, OBA programmes pur...

BACKGROUND The Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) initiative is a major government policy to improve maternal and child health and accelerate progress in the reduction of maternal mortality in Ghana. However, strategic intelligence on the impact of the initiative is lacking, given the persistant problems of patchy geographical access to care for rural women. This study investig...