Mapping healthcare systems: a policy relevant analytic tool.

Background: In the past decade, an international consensus on the value of well-functioning systems has driven considerable health systems research. This research falls into two broad categories. The first provides conceptual frameworks that take complex healthcare systems and create simplified constructs of interactions and functions.

Establishing a regulatory value chain model: An innovative approach to strengthening medicines regulatory systems in resource-constrained settings.

Medicines Regulatory Authorities (MRAs) are an essential part of national health systems and are charged with protecting and promoting public health through regulation of medicines. However, MRAs in resource-constrained settings often struggle to provide effective oversight of market entry and use of health commodities. This paper proposes a regulatory value chain model (RVCM) that policymakers and regulators can use as a conceptual framework to guide investments aimed at strengthening regulatory systems.

Is private health care the answer to the health problems of the world's poor?

The global burden of disease falls disproportionately upon the world's low-income countries, which are often struggling with weak health systems. Both the public and private sector deliver health care in these countries, but the appropriate role for each of these sectors in health system strengthening remains controversial. This debate examines whether the private sector should step up its involvement in the health systems of low-income countries.