Introduction to health systems course
Introduction to Health Systems
This is an online 10 unit short course developed by David Bishai of Johns Hopkins University and the Health Systems Board under the sponsorship of Future Health Systems.
Background:
Health systems are the overlapping institutions that determine how a population organizes preventive and curative activities to guard health and cure disease. Health systems are to the maintenance of population health similar to what organ systems are to the health of the human body. There are multiple systems and breakdown of one affects the breakdown of others. Health systems deploy health workers, drugs, facilities, financing, and governance. Like organ systems, health systems break down in predictable patterns and lead to syndromes that can be diagnosed and addressed.
Dysfunctional health systems are why thousands of effective low-cost health interventions remain on the shelves while people suffer and die. Dysfunctional health systems leave people vulnerable to financial catastrophe. Failure to manage health resources judiciously permits not just waste, but the delivery of inappropriate or harmful services. While many lament how little research addresses the development of “new cures” for the diseases of the poor, the inexcusable tragedy is the world’s failure to deliver affordable and effective “old cures” to treatable and preventable diseases. Diarrhea, pneumonia, TB, malaria, are all easily and cheaply treatable. Their persistence around the world is a testament to failed health systems more so than a lack of scientific prowess.
Modules:
1) The Building Blocks of Health Systems
2) Agents, Units, Institutions
3) Service Delivery
4) Health Workforce
5) Quality and Governance
6) Financing 1
7) Financing 2
8) Supply chain
9) Information Systems
10) The Role of Households in Health Systems
Goals: The goal is to familiarize students with the syndromic study of health systems
Objectives: UPON COMPLETING THIS COURSE STUDENTS WILL BE ABLE TO
- Apply the theory of economic systems to the study of health sytems
- Distinguish the principal institutions, agents, and units that constitute a nation’s health systems
- Identify the principal syndromes of dysfunction in health system
- Critically evaluate promising attempts to manage dysfunctional health systems and how the social and political context can affect reform
- List ways to engage the policy reform process and how to adapt this process locally
Accessing Material
To register for the password you will need to access the materials please email your name. country and email address to: Robert Franks rfranks@jhsph.edu
We would like to contact you in the future to ask for your feedback on the course.
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