A colossal population of approximately 3.3 billion people, nearly half of size of world population, is at risk of malaria is a clear indication of a silent emergency. The recent World Malaria Report, 2013, released by the World Health Organization shows how far we have come in our fight against malaria and it shows that […]
“Islamabad Health Equity Model” by Dr. Orooj Hasan
Genuine, professional and original data base along with an honest and sincere analysis is very rare in the developing world. Road maps for development, based on concocted data, infrequently achieve significant results. The book, “Islamabad Health Equity Model” is the first of its type on this specific theme in the entire region. It provides an […]
Heartfile.org – The Innovative Amazon.com of Healthcare Financing
When in 1995 entrepreneur Jeff Bezos launched Amazon.com from his garage in Seattle (USA), fewer than 1 in 200 people worldwide had internet access and online shopping was just a year old. Today, Bezos’ innovative website has made Amazon.com the world’s largest online retailer, with $60 billion in annual sales – $170 million a day. […]
Butchers galore
Lying in a surgical unit of the Khyber Teaching Hospital in Peshawar is an elderly woman with half her abdominal wall practically eaten away by infection – the outcome of a surgery carried out in a district hospital, which was mismanaged in the first place and became infected later. She has several gaping openings, through […]
WHO Releases World Health Report 2013: Research for Universal Health Coverage
The World Health Organization launched the “World Health Report 2013: Research for Universal Health Coverage” in Beijing on August 14th, 2013. This report resonates the 2010, World Health Report on “Health Systems Financing: The path to universal coverage”. The interest in universal health coverage has only grown since then as Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO Director […]
Innovative use of “mHealth” in a model for healthcare financing
As defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), eHealth is the latest development in health that ensures cost-effective and secure use of information and communication technologies in promoting and supporting health and its related fields. However, eHealth is a general term; of its four distinct components, Mobile Health (mHealth) i.e., provision of health services and […]
Increasing the use of evidence in the design and implementation of health financing reforms
This week in Geneva, the global community has gathered for the Sixty-sixth World Health Assembly. As we recently passed the 1000 day count down to the end of the current Millennium Development goals. The post-MDG framework is at the forefront of this year’s Assembly. Over the past three years, UHC has been gaining traction as […]
The role of the private sector in moving towards universal coverage
Meet Majid. This 15 year old boy is the primary earner for his family in Pakistan. Majid was hit by a tractor, leaving him out of a job, with no money for an operation, and a starving family. More than 120 million people in Pakistan pay out of pocket for needed health care services. As […]
Catalyzing change through partnerships
With the rapidly evolving global context, challenges facing public health such as accessibility, high cost of healthcare and delayed responsiveness of the healthcare systems are arguably systematic and governance related. This neither can be addressed by a single skill set, nor is it the responsibility of a single profession. Solutions would emerge from interdisciplinary collaboration […]
The boy with the bruised lip
Ali seemed very shy. He didn’t make eye contact with the Heartfile verifier—or perhaps it was his swollen and badly bruised lip, which made him conscious. Throughout the conversation between our verifier and his mother, his gaze remained lowered, as if knowing that something is terribly wrong, and that he is responsible for it. Perhaps […]