Assessing The Effects Of Digital Technologies On Health Financing And Universal Health Coverage Objectives

Digital health is a rapidly expanding area of interest for both research, policy and practice, and within that area digital technologies (DTs) for health financing receive increasing attention. DTs can change the nature and business processes of health financing functions and tasks and modify the interactions between health financing actors. Depending on their design features and actual implementation as well as broader contextual factors, DTs can affect the health financing tasks and functions (positively or negatively). However, little robust evidence exists on the impact of DTs specifically on health financing and universal health coverage (UHC) objectives. More rigorous evaluations in this area is urgently needed. The aim of this guide is to support the evidence generation on DTs for health financing. The guide provides orientation to analyse a country use case of digital technology and its (positive and negative) effects for health financing, i.e. whether, how and why it contributes to the realization of desirable health financing attributes and UHC intermediate and final objectives or whether, how and in which circumstances it is actually harmful to these.

This report explores digital solutions that can support the core business processes of public health insurance operators in Asia and the Pacific. It draws on examples from low- and middle-income countries from the region and beyond to demonstrate how digital solutions have improved health insurance management and administration. To support decision-making on potential investments, the report identifies key success factors for integrating new technologies into public health insurance schemes.

The role of digital technologies for health financing and their potential contribution to UHC progress is receiving increased attention, although the evidence base is still very small, indicating the need for further documentation and assessments of countries’ practices. This paper seeks to contribute to gathering the evidence needed. Specifically, the paper assesses the experiences of three countries – Cambodia, India and Rwanda – to explore the use and role of digital technologies that support the identification of the poor and other vulnerable population groups. The focus is on the processes of targeting, identification and identity confirmation as important health financing-related tasks that cut across the revenue-raising and pooling functions with the purpose of providing fully- or partially subsidized coverage via publicly funded health coverage schemes.

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.

Worldwide the application of information and communication technologies to support national health-care services is rapidly expanding and increasingly important. This is especially so at a time when all health systems face stringent economic challenges and greater demands to provide more and better care especially to those most in need. The National eHealth Strategy Toolkit is an expert practical guide that provides governments their ministries and stakeholders with a solid foundation and method for the development and implementation of a national eHealth vision action plan and monitoring fram.

This third global survey of the WHO Global Observatory for eHealth (GOe) investigated how eHealth can support universal health coverage(UHC) in Member States. A total of 125 countries participated in the survey ? a clear reflection of the growing interest in this area. The report considers eHealth foundations built through policy development funding approaches and capacity building in eHealth through the training of students and professionals. It then observes specific eHealth applications such as mHealth telehealth electronic health records systems and eLearning and how these contribute to the goals of UHC. Of interest is the extent to which legal frameworks protect patient privacy in EHRs as health care systems move towards to delivering safer more efficient and more accessible health care. Finally the rapidly emerging areas of social media for health care as well as big data for research and planning are reported.