Health Systems Analysis

Objectives

After this unit, students should be able to:
1. Define concepts of health system/health care system/health policy/health care policy/health needs, services, resources.
2. Explain determinants of these needs and relationships between these different categories of needs.
3. Set goals for each category of needs.
4. Describe/discuss strengths/weaknesses of explanatory models of production processes and use of health services.

General characterization

Code

5788006

Credits

4

Responsible teacher

Jorge Simões

Hours

Weekly - 8

Total - 32

Teaching language

Portuguese

Prerequisites

Not applicable

Bibliography

• European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, “HiT Country Profiles.”
• Hsiao W, et al, “Health Systems: Concepts and Deterministic Models of Performance. A Background Paper prepared for the Workshop on Research Agendas on Global Health Systems,” Dec. 3-5, 2008. At:
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTHSD/Resources/376278-1114111154043/1011834-1246449110524/HsiaoSiadatInSearchOfaCommonConceptualFrameworkForHSSDraft62309.pdf.
• Mills A et al. “The Design of Health Systems.” in International Public Health: Diseases, Programs, Systems, and Policies, eds. Michael Merson, Robert Black, Anne Mills (Gaithersburg: Aspen Publishers, 2005).
• Roemer M, National Health Systems of the World. Vol. 2. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
• World Health Organization, Strengthening health systems to improve health outcomes (Geneva: WHO, 2007).
• World Health Organization. World Health Report 2000: Health systems: improving performance (Geneva: WHO, 2000).

Teaching method

1. Presentations by teachers and students of programmatic contents.
2. Logical frameworks of analysis applied by the students (in groups) to analyze specific health systems and presented to colleagues and teachers.

Evaluation method

Evaluation shall take into account both the questions that students raise their colleagues and the answers they provide during the questioning they undergo during presentations.

Subject matter

I. Presentation and critical discussion of logical frameworks for the analysis health systems and health care policies, of production processes and use of services and of individual, organizational, and institutional factors that influence them.
II. Application of analytical frameworks to specific health systems.

Programs

Programs where the course is taught: