Global Healthcare

Using an approach that combines transnational and comparative social policy analysis with international relations, this book assesses various global social policy actors and compares their ideas and prescriptions about national health care systems. It highlights the importance of considering health policies across multiple scales.

Since the 1990s, mainstream political parties have failed to address the problem of growing inequality, resulting in political backlash and the transformation of European party systems. Most attempts to explain the rise of inequality in political science take a far too narrow approach, considering only economic inequality and failing to recognize how multiple manifestations of inequality combine to reinforce each other and the underlying political features of advanced welfare states. Combining training in public health with a background in political science, Julia Lynch brings a unique perspective to debates about inequality in political science and to public health thinking about the causes of and remedies for health inequalities. Based on case studies of efforts to reduce health inequalities in England, France and Finland, Lynch argues that inequality persists because political leaders chose to frame the issue of inequality in ways that made it harder to solve.

This book follows the implications of the changing landscape for women's health and health care and their sexual and reproductive rights. In the latest national and international health policy developments, we are witnessing the effects of a series of concerted conservative attacks on women. Facing this onslaught, women's health movements are using the new technologies of the Internet and social media and finding other novel ways to advance their rights and protest against attempts to roll back the gains they made in the last four decades. Detailed country case studies and discussions of topics ranging from violence against women, disability, and birth control, as well as abundant examples of women's activism from all over the world make this account of women's health movements a lively, informative, and compelling read.

Examines current and prospective challenges surrounding global challenges of education, energy, healthcare, security, and resilience This book discusses issues in large-scale systems in the United States and around the world. The authors examine the challenges of education, energy, healthcare, national security, and urban resilience. The book covers challenges in education including America's use of educational funds, standardized testing, and the use of classroom technology.  On the topic of energy, this book examines debates on climate, the current and future developments of the nuclear power industry, the benefits and cost decline of natural gases, and the promise of renewable energy. The authors also discuss national security, focusing on the issues of nuclear weapons, terrorism and cyber security. Urban resilience is addressed in the context of natural threats such as hurricanes and floods. Studies the usage of a globalized benchmark for both student and pedagogical performance Covers topics such as surveillance, operational capabilities, movement of resources, and the pros and cons of globalization Examines big data, evolving medical methodologies and effects on the medical educational curriculum, and the positive effects of electronic records in healthcare data Perspectives on Complex Global Challenges: Education, Energy Healthcare, Security, and Resilience serves as a reference for government officials, personnel in security, business executives and system engineers.

Global health is a rapidly emerging discipline with a transformative potential for public policy and international development. Emphasizing transnational health issues, global health aims to improve health and achieve health equity for all people worldwide. Its multidisciplinary scope includes contributions from many disciplines within and beyond the health sciences, including clinical medicine, public health, social and behavioral sciences, environmental sciences, economics, public policy, law and ethics. This large reference will offer up-to-date information and expertise across all aspects of global health and will help readers achieve a truly multidisciplinary understanding of the driving forces, dynamics, and models in healthcare, as well as the biological, clinical, socioeconomic and environmental drivers impacting global health disorders and challenges. As a fully comprehensive, state-of-the-art reference that can be updated periodically, over time, as the data and drivers change, Global Health will be an important, dynamic resource to provide context for global health clinical care, organizational and state decision-making, and overall public policy on many levels. Physicians (both research and practice-oriented), trainees, medical students, health economists, environmental scientists, social scientists from a range of disciplines working in the field of health and illness (both practitioners and at the university / graduate program level), public policy and law students and professionals, and allied health trainees and practitioners will find this work of great value.

This open access book is a collection of 12 case studies capturing decades of experience improving health care and outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. Each case study is written by healthcare managers and providers who have implemented health improvement projects using quality improvement methodology, with analysis from global health experts on the practical application of improvement methods. The book shows how frontline providers in health and social services can identify gaps in care, propose changes to address those gaps, and test the effectiveness of their changes in order to improve health processes and outcomes. The chapters feature cases that provide real-life examples of the challenges, solutions, and benefits of improving healthcare quality and clearly demonstrate for readers what quality improvement looks like in practice: Addressing Behavior Change in Maternal, Neonatal, and Child Health with Quality Improvement and Collaborative Learning Methods in Guatemala Haitis National HIV Quality Management Program and the Implementation of an Electronic Medical Record to Drive Improvement in Patient Care Scaling Up a Quality Improvement Initiative: Lessons from Chamba District, India Promoting Rational Use of Antibiotics in the Kyrgyz Republic Strengthening Services for Most Vulnerable Children through Quality Improvement Approaches in a Community Setting: The Case of Bagamoyo District, Tanzania Improving HIV Counselling and Testing in Tuberculosis Service Delivery in Ukraine: Profile of a Pilot Quality Improvement Team and Its Scale-Up Journey Improving Health Care in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Case Book will find an engaged audience among healthcare providers and administrators implementing and managing improvement projects at Ministries of Health in low- to middle-income countries. The book also aims to be a useful reference for government donor agencies, their implementing partners, and other high-level decision makers, and can be used as a course text in schools of public health, public policy, medicine, and development. ACKNOWLEDGMENT: This work was conducted under the USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems (ASSIST) Project, USAID Award No. AID-OAA-A-12-00101, which is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). DISCLAIMER: The contents of this book are the sole responsibility of the Editor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government