On Sustainable Health Systems

A Research Emergency in Pandemic times

Abstract

Health Systems are diversely organized at the Macro, Mezo, and Micro-levels around the World. Building blocks of the Health system include human resources, health infrastructure, health services, health information, healthcare technologies and Leadership and Governance are cross-cutting and organized at all levels of health care. Research on health systems is organized at the operations level, implementation level, and health systems research. However, research is more meaningful if it's organized with people as the end beneficiaries of the organized health ecosystem.  Building a resilient health system in complex adaptive systems poses enormous challenges to achieve health outcomes from current policies, programs, and practices. Research in robust policy design, implementation, and evaluation of comparative health systems in a pluralistic society is needed. Adaptability and affability are essential and so is sustainability.

Additionally, outsourcing healthcare management functions and services has been evolving in the past twenty years successfully in many areas, although more recent evidence on this option should be produced as many new phenomena occurred in the meantime. It is therefore urgent to generate more evidence on key issues like what are the areas of outsourcing around the World? What real benefits have they promoted to health systems and to patients? And what are the aspects that failed? This type of evidence will generate a renewed debate on health systems development fundamental to improve healthcare around the world.