Implementation of hospital governing boards: views from the field.

Background: Decentralization through the establishment of hospital governing boards has been touted as an effective way to improve the quality and efficiency of hospitals in low-income countries. Although several studies have examined the process of decentralization, few have quantitatively assessed the implementation of hospital governing boards and their impact on hospital performance. Therefore, we sought to describe the functioning of governing boards and to determine the association between governing board functioning and hospital performance.

Implementing clinical guidelines in low-income settings: a review of literature.

The use of clinical guidelines has been shown to confer benefits for care delivery in high-income settings, but little is known about their implementation in low-income settings. We conducted a systematic literature review on the implementation of World Health Organisation (WHO) clinical guidelines for hospital care in low-income settings. We searched Medline, Global Health and Scopus for articles describing the implementation of clinical guidelines issued by the WHO for hospitals in low-income countries.

A brief questionnaire for assessing patient healthcare experiences in low-income settings.

Objective: The aim of this study was to develop and to assess the validity and reliability of two brief questionnaires for assessing patient experiences with hospital and outpatient care in a low-income setting.

Design: Using literature review and data from focus groups (n = 14), we developed questionnaires to assess patient experiences with inpatient (I-PAHC) and with outpatient (O-PAHC) care in a low-income setting. Questionnaires were administered in person by trained interviewers.

Educating leaders in hospital management: a pre-post study in Ethiopian hospitals.

Despite recent focus on health systems strengthening, few studies report large-scale efforts to improve hospital management capacity in low-income countries, a central component of improving health care delivery. We sought to assess the contributions of a systems-based approach, the Ethiopian Hospital Management Initiative (EHMI), which established hospital chief executive officers (CEOs) trained through a Masters of Healthcare and Hospital Administration (MHA) degree programme in Ethiopia. We conducted a pre-post study of 24 hospitals that are managed by CEOs in the MHA programme.