Newborn babies are arguably the most vulnerable class of patients in any society. They are entirely incapable of surviving on their own without external help from carers and society. A poorly attended newborn will more likely die than one who received well-guided and knowledgeable care. Therefore, the neonatal mortality rate of any society represents a quick measure of the efficiency of its healthcare system, available technologies, and knowledge base. It is common knowledge that low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) contribute over 80% of the global annual burden of neonatal deaths. Limited access to sustainable technologies for neonatal care is one of the major impediments to lowering neonatal mortality in LMICs. Highly sophisticated technologies as applied in high-income countries (HICs) may be unaffordable and unsustainable at LMICs, however, a well-crafted basic technology may be appreciably effective in lifesaving, affordable, and easily maintainable by the indigenous people. The promotion, adaptation, implementation, and scale-up of such appropriate technologies by other LMICs could offer them the quickest route to better neonatal survival.
The evaluation of reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH) by the Disease Control Priorities, Third Edition (DCP3) focuses on maternal conditions, childhood illness, and malnutrition. Specifically, the chapters address acute illness and undernutrition in children, principally under age 5. It also covers maternal mortality, morbidity, stillbirth, and influences to pregnancy and pre-pregnancy. Volume 3 focuses on developments since the publication of DCP2 and will also include the transition to older childhood, in particular, the overlap and commonality with the child development volume. The DCP3 evaluation of these conditions produced three key findings: 1. There is significant difficulty in measuring the burden of key conditions such as unintended pregnancy, unsafe abortion, nonsexually transmitted infections, infertility, and violence against women. 2. Investments in the continuum of care can have significant returns for improved and equitable access, health, poverty, and health systems. 3. There is a large difference in how RMNCH conditions affect different income groups; investments in RMNCH can lessen the disparity in terms of both health and financial risk.
This study has emerged from an ongoing program of trilateral cooperation between WHO, WTO and WIPO. It responds to an increasing demand, particularly in developing countries, for strengthened capacity for informed policy-making in areas of intersection between health, trade and IP, focusing on access to and innovation of medicines and other medical technologies.
In 2015, building on the advances of the Millennium Development Goals, the United Nations adopted Sustainable Development Goals that include an explicit commitment to achieve universal health coverage by 2030. However, enormous gaps remain between what is achievable in human health and where global health stands today, and progress has been both incomplete and unevenly distributed. In order to meet this goal, a deliberate and comprehensive effort is needed to improve the quality of health care services globally. Crossing the Global Quality Chasm: Improving Health Care Worldwide focuses on one particular shortfall in health care affecting global populations: defects in the quality of care. This study reviews the available evidence on the quality of care worldwide and makes recommendations to improve health care quality globally while expanding access to preventive and therapeutic services, with a focus in low-resource areas. Crossing the Global Quality Chasm emphasizes the organization and delivery of safe and effective care at the patient/provider interface. This study explores issues of access to services and commodities, effectiveness, safety, efficiency, and equity. Focusing on front line service delivery that can directly impact health outcomes for individuals and populations, this book will be an essential guide for key stakeholders, governments, donors, health systems, and others involved in health care.
The aim of this book is to provide a summary of the current concepts and challenges in global maternal and child health in a format that appeals to students of the subject, the general public, and current practitioners in the field. It also provides study exercises that may inform tutors on undergraduate and postgraduate courses.
The Pocket Book is for use by doctors nurses and other health workers who are responsible for the care of young children at the first level referral hospitals. This second edition is based on evidence from several WHO updated and published clinical guidelines. It is for use in both inpatient and outpatient care in small hospitals with basic laboratory facilities and essential medicines. In some settings these guidelines can be used in any facilities where sick children are admitted for inpatient care. The Pocket Book is one of a series of documents and tools that support the Integrated Managem.
A comprehensive resource describing innovative technologies and digital health tools that can revolutionize the delivery of health care in low- to middle-income countries, particularly in remote rural impoverished communities Revolutionizing Tropical Medicine offers an up-to-date guide for healthcare and other professionals working in low-resource countries where access to health care facilities for diagnosis and treatment is challenging. Rather than suggesting the expensive solution of building new bricks and mortar clinics and hospitals and increasing the number of doctors and nurses in these deprived areas, the authors propose a complete change of mindset. They outline a number of ideas for improving healthcare including rapid diagnostic testing for infectious and non-infectious diseases at a point-of-care facility, together with low cost portable imaging devices. In addition, the authors recommend a change in the way in which health care is delivered. This approach requires task-shifting within the healthcare provision system so that nurses, laboratory technicians, pharmacists and others are trained in the newly available technologies, thus enabling faster and more appropriate triage for people requiring medical treatment. This text: Describes the current burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases in low- to middle-income countries throughout the world Describes the major advances in healthcare outcomes in low-to middle-income countries derived from implementation of the United Nations/World Health Organisation’s 2000 Millennium Development Goals Provides a review of inexpensive rapid diagnostic point-of-care tests for infectious diseases in low-resource countries, particularly for people living in remote rural areas Provides a review of other rapid point-of-care services for assessing hematological function, biochemical function, renal function, hepatic function and status including hepatitis, acid-base balance, sickle cell disease, severe acute malnutrition and spirometry Explores the use of low-cost portable imaging devices for use in remote rural areas including a novel method of examining the optic fundus using a smartphone and the extensive value of portable ultrasound scanning when x-ray facilities are not available Describes the use of telemedicine in the clinical management of both children and adults in remote rural settings Looks to the future of clinical management in remote impoverished rural settings using nucleic acid identification of pathogens, the use of nanoparticles for water purification, the use of drones, the use of pulse oximetry and the use of near-infrared spectroscopy Finally, it assesses the potential for future healthcare improvement in impoverished areas and how the United Nations/World Health Organization 2015 Sustainable Development Goals are approaching this. Written for physicians, infectious disease specialists, pathologists, radiologists, nurses, pharmacists and other health care workers, as well as government healthcare managers, Revolutionizing Tropical Medicine is a new up-to-date essential and realistic guide to treating and diagnosing patients in low-resource tropical countries based on new technologies.
Interest in implementation research is growing, largely in recognition of the contribution it can make to maximizing the beneficial impact of health interventions. As a relatively new and, until recently, rather neglected field within the health sector, implementation research is something of an unknown quantity for many. There is therefore a need for greater clarity about what exactly implementation research is, and what it can offer. This Guide is designed to provide that clarity. Intended to support those conducting implementation research, those with responsibility for implementing programs, and those who have an interest in both, the Guide provides an introduction to basic implementation research concepts and language, briefly outlines what it involves, and describes the many opportunities that it presents. The main aim of the Guide is to boost implementation research capacity as well as demand for implementation research that is aligned with need, and that is of particular relevance to health systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Research on implementation requires the engagement of diverse stakeholders and multiple disciplines in order to address the complex implementation challenges they face. For this reason, the Guide is intended for a variety of actors who contribute to and/or are impacted by implementation research. This includes the decision-makers responsible for designing policies and managing programs whose decisions shape implementation and scale-up processes, as well as the practitioners and front-line workers who ultimately implement these decisions along with researchers from different disciplines who bring expertise in systematically collecting and analyzing information to inform implementation questions. The opening chapters (1-4) make the case for why implementation research is important to decision-making. They offer a workable definition of implementation research and illustrate the relevance of research to problems that are often considered to be simply administrative and provide examples of how such problems can be framed as implementation research questions. The early chapters also deal with the conduct of implementation research, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and discussing the role of implementers in the planning and designing of studies, the collection and analysis of data, as well as in the dissemination and use of results. The second half of the Guide (5-7) detail the various methods and study designs that can be used to carry out implementation research, and, using examples, illustrates the application of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method designs to answer complex questions related to implementation and scale-up. It offers guidance on conceptualizing an implementation research study from the identification of the problem, development of research questions, identification of implementation outcomes and variables, as well as the selection of the study design and methods while also addressing important questions of rigor.
Kangaroo mother care is a method of care of preterm infants which involves infants being carried, usually by the mother, with skin-to-skin contact. This guide is intended for health professionals responsible for the care of low-birth-weight and preterm infants. Designed to be adapted to local conditions, it provides guidance on how to organize services at the referral level and on what is needed to provide effective kangaroo mother care.
