The Challenge
Every year nearly ten million children and half a million mothers die from preventable causes because they cannot access the health care they need. Even when people do have access, quality care is often a luxury. And more than 25 million families descend into poverty each year because of catastrophic health expenses.
Over 25 million families descend into poverty each year because of catastrophic health expenses.
While health spending has increased dramatically around the world, access to affordable, quality services has lagged. The ability to provide good and equitable health services for all people depends, in part, on the performance of health systems—networks of organizations, businesses, individuals, government entities and technological resources dedicated to promoting, maintaining, or restoring health.
In recent years, the global health field has focused on disease and population-specific programs, with insufficient attention paid to health systems. This has resulted in dysfunctional health service delivery and inequitable financing, especially in under-resourced areas. The challenge of creating affordable, high-quality health systems is universal, but the problems are especially acute in developing countries.
Our Strategy
New technologies and demographic, epidemiologic, and economic shifts are transforming health systems in countries around the world. There is now a window of opportunity to promote strategies that steer this transformation toward better health outcomes and financial protection through improved health systems performance and the expansion of universal health coverage in low- and middle-income countries.
The Rockefeller Foundation’s Transforming Health Systems initiative employs four key funding strategies:
- Fostering health systems research and agenda setting for universal health coverage
- Enhancing professional capacity to plan and manage high-performing health systems
- Harnessing the resources of the private sector to finance and deliver health services
- Leveraging interoperable eHealth systems
Key Outcomes
This initiative helps improve the health of more people through greater access to timely, appropriate, and affordable health services.
To achieve measurable results, this initiative aims to:
- Inform leadership and public policy so that universal health coverage is accepted as a feasible and desirable goal and is adopted by a growing number of national governments.
- Build capacity in both public and private sectors for enhanced development and stewardship of health systems in selected countries.
- Support innovation, tools, and global public-private partnerships and networks to develop interoperable eHealth systems that improve quality, access and affordability of health services in selected countries.
Full Summary: Transforming Health Systems (PDF)
