ever changing needs of society to which the health sector has to respond, makes the health sector reform inevitable for any country worldwide. increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of health services, equity, sustainable financing and management improvement are the main objectives of health sector reform. healthcare reform was set high on the new administration’s agenda with the start of ...

In this commentary on the exercise of Lehoux et al (this volume) I argue that in discussions on the current challenges of health systems, a better diagnosis of the health system is required. The cause of responsible innovation in health (RIH) requires a better understanding of the dynamics of health systems, in particular how innovation, demand, and responsibility are m...

an important determinant of health system performance is contracting. providers often respond to financial incentives, despite the ethical underpinnings of medicine, and payers can craft contracts to influence performance. yet contracting is highly imperfect in both single-payer and multi-payer health systems. arguably, in a competitive, multi-payer environment, contractual innovation may occur...

Lehoux et al provide a timely and relevant turn on the broad and ongoing discussion around the introduction of health technology and innovation. More specifically, the authors suggest a demand-driven approach to health innovation that starts from identifying challenges and demands at the health system level. In this commentary, I review a number of underlying implications of their study in rela...

Although leadership has been studied extensively, most research has focused on the political and military spheres. More recent work has also examined the role of leadership in sectors such as manufacturing and technology, both areas where it is essential to encourage and nurture innovation. Yet, in the health sector, where innovation is now high on the policy agenda in many countries, there is ...

there were once again high expectations that a major global health event - the ebola virus outbreak of 2014-2015 - would trigger meaningfully world health organization (who) reform and strengthen global health governance (ghg). rather than a “turning point,” however, the global community has gone back to business as usual. this has occurred against a backdrop of worldwide political turmoil, cha...

In this article, the authors discuss the role of action research in relation to the investigation and practical implementation of innovations in health care. The diffusion of innovations is an essential component of the modernization of health services worldwide. However, the literature shows that it is not an easy process to research. A paradox is noted that although action research has much t...

An important determinant of health system performance is contracting. Providers often respond to financial incentives, despite the ethical underpinnings of medicine, and payers can craft contracts to influence performance. Yet contracting is highly imperfect in both single-payer and multi-payer health systems. Arguably, in a competitive, multi-payer environment, contractual innovation may occur...

Lehoux and colleagues plea for a health systems perspective to evaluate innovations. Since many innovations and their scale-up strategies emerge from processes that are not (centrally) steered, we plea for any assessment with a dynamic, instead of a sequential, approach. We provide further guidance on how to adopt such dynamic approach, in order to better un-derstand an...