Tag: health system strengthening

Tanzania has set its digital health road map and is revving its engine, ready to drive forward.
Mar 1, 2017
At the core of Tanzania’s strategy to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals is a vision of all health workers’ ability to access and meaningfully use the information they need to make the best decisions to improve health.
Read MoreProject Profile – BID Initiative
Oct 19, 2016
The second half of the 20th century marked a period of great advancement in immunization. As donors and national governments stepped up investments to develop vaccines and strengthen routine immunization programs, infectious diseases that once ravaged much of the world were either wiped out or largely stripped of their devastating impact. The achievements of the past century now read like a laundry list—smallpox eradicated, wild poliovirus is more than 99% eliminated and cases of measles and Hib among children under-five now reduced to record low numbers.
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What are the costs and benefits of implementation?
Aug 30, 2016
How much does it cost to implement BID interventions in the test sites in Tanzania and Zambia? What are the capital and recurrent costs of operating BID interventions? What are the resources required to implement interventions in each district? How do the costs of providing immunization services and reporting compare for the current system and after BID interventions are implemented? What are the benefits of the BID interventions that can be quantified in monetary terms? These are some of the key questions policy makers and donors are asking the BID team as we move forward with implementing interventions in facilities in Tanzania and Zambia.
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My early memories led to a life serving others
Aug 17, 2016
My most vivid memories of my early childhood are twofold: lying on a hospital bed with my legs in the air, and watching my younger brother draw his last breath as a result of severe hot water burns he suffered during his hospitalization in what was then Northern Rhodesia. According to my parents, I should not have remembered these instances as I was less than five years old at the time, but these memories remain crystal clear.
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Targeting Specific Diseases vs. Health System Strengthening in Zambia
Apr 16, 2015
As we work towards increasing immunization coverage rates in Zambia through increased data collection, quality, and use, we take a moment to review a recent study in BMC Medicine by Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, USAID, among others. The results beg the question, are routine health services, such as child immunizations, suffering as the focus grows towards disease specific interventions? The following excerpts are from an article originally published on Humanosphere, authored by Tom Paulson.
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How to Improve Access to Affordable Health Care
Nov 13, 2014
In support of their Healthy Means campaign, Devex published an article, “How to improve access to affordable health care,” that resonates with some of the work we are doing with the BID Initiative. The article stresses that while access and affordability are important, without strong health systems and quality service delivery with accountability and effective oversight, health care service will remain insufficient.
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