[Recruitment, selection and retention staffing policies in health services directly managed. SESPAS Report 2024].

In an organization with highly specialized and changing services over the course of a working life, such as health services managed directly by public administrations (DM-NHS) are, the issues related to the recruitment, selection and retention of professionals should receive special attention. much larger than what is provided. For too long, the DM-NHS has mainly been working to resolve the problems that affect the organization, with enormous disregard for those suffer by the recipients of its services, the real population to which it provides assistance.

[Health policy priorities. SESPAS meeting at the XXXIII School of Public Health of Menorca].

Objective: In September 2022, the Sociedad Española de Salud Pública y Administración Sanitaria (SESPAS) brought together a panel of experts with the aim of defining and prioritizing health policy proposals, from the perspective of the Spanish State as a whole, to adapt the National Health System (NHS) to current risks and to contemporary/present-day society.

Method: Expert meeting structured using a mix of procedures adapted from brainstorming, nominal group and Rand consensus method techniques. Relevance and feasibility of proposals identified were assessed individually by each panelist.

Side effects during the week after first dose vaccination with four Covid-19 vaccines. Results of the ProVaVac Survey Study with 13,837 people in Spain.

Background: In 2021, four vaccines against Covid-19 (BNT162b2, mRNA-1273, ChAdOx1nCoV-19, and JNJ-78436735) were employed in the region of Valencia, Spain. We conducted a survey to identify real-world, self-reported frequency and severity of side effects during the week after vaccination.

Methods: Survey data was obtained from April 19, 2021, to October 6, 2021, at three different moments in time: day one, day three and day seven after vaccination.

Life medicalization and the recent appearance of "pharmaceuticalization".

Medicalization is a concern to which we have been paying attention intermittently for the past half century. However, it is increasingly  difficult to look away from its multiple and ubiquitous manifestations, and  therefore there is an increasingly higher number of analysis and studies about  them, from the most varied perspectives, not only by healthcare literature, but also with the great contribution by social sciences such as Anthropology or  Sociology.Based on previous publications, this article offers an updated review on life  medicalization in the European setting, highlighting particularly those situations  where a medication is the main vehicle for medicalization.

[Barriers for introducing a health technology assessment organization to inform health care decision-making in the Spanish National Health System].

Background: To identify difficulties, obstacles and limitations to establish an organizational structure devoted to the evaluation of healthcare technologies for incorporation, maintenance or removal from the services portfolio of the Spanish National Health System (sNHS).

Methods: Panel of 14 experts, structured according to processes adapted from brainstorming, nominal group, and Rand consensus method techniques.

Results: The panel proposed 77 items as potential obstacles to the establishment of an official and independent "agency" able to inform on sNHS healthcare benefits funding or selective disinvestment.

[Pharmaceutical prescription in primary care. SESPAS report 2012].

In 2010, the Spanish National Health Service (NHS) paid for 958 million prescriptions. Given the massive population exposure to medication, the risks associated with drug consumption are highly significant from the perspective of public health. Areas requiring improvement in primary care prescription include overtreatment of patients in low risk situations, undertreatment of those in whom medication is indicated, poor patient information, polymedication, self-medication and the appreciable percentage of preventable adverse effects.

[Transparency and good healthcare governance: an aid to overcoming the crisis].

Countries thrive on an economic foundation capable of facilitating the fulfillment of human potential in a society that does not renounce major achievements such as the welfare state. A necessary condition is that the "rules of the game", formal and informal institutions, make what is socially desirable individually attractive. Improving health governance, including its dimension of controlling corruption, and helping Spain out of the current economic crisis are two sides of the same coin.

[Identification and prioritization of interventions to improve efficiency in the National Health System].

Objectives: To identify a significant number of interventions to improve efficiency and reduce waste in the Spanish National Health System (NHS), to prioritize these interventions according to their impact, and to assess the measures recently adopted by the Spanish government.

Material And Methods: A meeting was held with 13 healthcare experts, structured according to a mixed method adapted from brainstorming, nominal group and Rand consensus methods.

Results: The panel proposed 101 possible actions to improve the efficiency of the Spanish NHS.

[Evaluation of the launch of an unambiguous patient identification strategy in the hospitals of the Valencian Healthcare Agency (Spain)].

Introduction And Objective: Identification problems are associated with errors arising in the course of providing patient care. To improve patient safety, a universal and unambiguous identification system is required. The aim of this study was to assess the experience of designing, implementing and evaluating the launch of a strategy for unambiguous patient identification, using an identification bracelet in all the hospitals of the Valencian Healthcare Agency.

[Public health crises in a developed society. Successes and limitations in Spain. SESPAS report 2010].

The perception, acceptability and management of risks are social construction. Consequently, in managing public health crises, the gap between facts, beliefs and feelings tests the responsiveness of official institutions to health alarms that can be objective, potential, or imaginary. On balance, a strong point of the Spanish experience of health crises is the presence of clinicians and public health officers working in an organization capable of responding adequately, although the quasi-federal Spanish political structure has both advantages and disadvantages.

[Effectiveness, variation and inequalities. Hysterectomies and prostatectomies due to neoplasm in Spain (2002-2004)].

Background: Debates about equity in the utilization of health services often omit whether inequalities are observed in effective and safe procedures or they are experienced in treatments dubiously effective. This work tries to illustrate the difference between inequality and inequity in the health services research field.

Methods: Ecologic study on the standardized rates of surgical interventions in uterus and prostate cancer, produced between 2002 and 2004 in 180 healthcare areas in Spain.

[Pharmaceutical distribution and retail pharmacy].

In this chapter, the main characteristics of pharmaceutical distribution and retail pharmacy are described. The author analyses the structure of this sector, the agents operating in it -wholesalers, hospital pharmacy services and chemists- and the very few modifications introduced in it in the recent years, focusing on the incentives of its current structure and their consistency with health aims. On the basis of this analysis, the author outlines some possible ways to redefine the sector, which should focus on the promotion of desirable health objectives rather than on the survival of the inefficacies that hinder its evolution.

Effectiveness of feedback to physicians in reducing inappropriate use of hospitalization: a study in a Spanish hospital.

Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of feedback to medical staff in reducing inappropriate hospital days, particularly those attributable to conservative medical discharge policies.

Design: Quasi-experimental pre-test/post-test with non-equivalent control group.

Setting: A publicly funded hospital in industrial belt in Barcelona (Spain), serving a predominantly urban population of 100,000.