in a recent editorial in this journal pierre-gerlier forest foretells a coming revolution in health policy based on the synthesis of four conceptual innovations and one technological breakthrough. as much as i agree with the intellectual story told in this editorial i present a more skeptical view of the effect of paradigm shifts on healthcare systems on the ground. i argue that ideas triumph w...

Background National community health worker (CHW) programmes are increasingly regarded as an integral component of primary healthcare (PHC) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). At the interface of the formal health system and communities, CHW programmes evolve in context specific ways, with unique cadres and a variety of vertical and horizontal relationships. These programmes need...

OBJECTIVE To review the literature on the views of healthcare professionals to the linkage of healthcare data and to identify any potential barriers and/or facilitators to participation in a data linkage system. METHODS Published papers describing the views of healthcare professionals (HCPs) to data sharing and linkage were identified by searches of Medline, EMBASE, SCOPUS, CINAHL, and PsychI...

This article provides a commentary to Ole Norheim’ s editorial entitled “Ethical perspective: Five unacceptable trade-offs on the path to universal health coverage.” It reinforces its message that an inclusive, participatory process is essential for ethical decision-making and underlines the crucial importance of good governance in setting fair priorities in healthcare. Solidarity on both natio...

BACKGROUND Clinical governance (CG) is an approach to quality improvement in healthcare aimed at achieving a patient-centered health care system. The main objective of this study was to highlight human centered healthcare latent factors underlying the results of a CG assessment performed in the teaching hospital "A. Gemelli" of Rome, Italy. MATERIALS AND METHODS CG implementation levels were ...

The pervasive use of technology in organizations to address the increased services complexity has created a critical dependency on information technology (IT) that calls to a specific focus on IT Governance (ITG). However, determining the right ITG mechanisms remains a complex endeavor. This paper uses Design Science Research and proposes an exploratory research by analyzing ITG case studies to...

The introduction of top-down centrally driven solutions to governance of healthcare, at the same time as increasing policy emphasis on greater 'bottom up' patient and public involvement in all aspects of healthcare, has set up complex tensions for policy implementation and healthcare practice. This paper explores the interplay of these agendas in the context of changes in primary healthcare ser...

As healthcare organizations rely more heavily on IT, there is a growing need to understand innovative IT use in these organizations. First, this research introduces the concept of ehealth absorptive capacity which consists of e-health entrepreneurial alertness, assimilation and exploitation, based on Cohen and Levinthal (1990)’s absorptive capacity theory. We then address the theoretical neglec...

Healthcare technology investments must be borne by charity, government subsidy, or patient reimbursement. Such investments can be expensive and require partnerships of public and private institutions. This paper explores the relationship between technology sustainability and healthcare governance of multiinstitutional technology partnerships. A technology is assumed to be sustainable if the ini...