First Global Patient Safety Challenge Clean Care is Safer Care
The WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care provide health-care workers (HCWs), hospital administrators and health authorities with a thorough review of evidence on hand hygiene in health care and specific recommendations to impro...ve practices and reduce transmission of pathogenic microorganisms to patients and HCWs. The present Guidelines are intended to be implemented in any situation in which health care is delivered either to a patient or to a specific group in a population. Therefore, this concept applies to all settings where health care is permanently or occasionally performed, such as home care by birth attendants.
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The toolkit's purpose is to:
improve the primary health care response for older persons.
sensitize and educate primary health care workers about the specific needs of their older clients.
provide primary care health workers with a set of tools/instruments to assess older people's hea...lth.
raise awareness among primary care health workers of the accumulation of minor/major disabilities experienced by older people.
provide guidance on how to make primary health care management procedures more responsive to the needs of older people's needs.
offer direction on how to do environmental audits to test primary health care centres for their age-friendliness.
The toolkit comprises a number of instruments (evaluation forms, slides, figures, graphs, diagrams, scale tables, country guidelines, exam sheets, screening tools, cards, checklists, etc.) that can be used by primary health care workers to assess and address older persons' health. These resources are meant to supplement and not to replace local and national materials and guidelines
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This book is a practical manual of mental health care for community health workers, primary care nurses, social workers and primary care doctors, particularly in developing countries.Helpful features include: over 50 illustrations and case studies, jargon-free explanations and descriptions, flow-cha...rts on common clinical problems, and a practical guide to the use of psychiatric medicines and simple psychological treatments.
Chapters 1, 9 and 10 can be found on the e-TALC CD-ROM number 2 (April 2003). See www.talcuk.org for details Links to Chapters 2 and 3 above. Printed copies of this book can also be obtained from the Royal College of Psychiatrists www.rcpsych.ac.uk/wnitp
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A Systematic Review, Country Case Studies, and Recommendations for Integration into National Health Systems
Alliance Report
Participation of community health workers (CHWs) in the provision of primary health care has been experienced all over the world for several decades, and there is an amount ...of evidence showing that they can add significantly to the efforts of improving the health of the population, particularly in those settings with the highest shortage of motivated and capable health professionals.
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This document provides a summary of the recommendations for hand hygiene best practices to be performed by health workers providing care and/or support to patients with filovirus infection (Ebola and Marburg viruses).
The Safer COVID-19 Response checklist has been produced for managers of health-care services, individual practitioners and health policymakers worried about the impact of violence against health-care workers, facilities and patients during the COVID-19 response. It provides a practical, actionable s...ummary of important measures for preventing, reducing and mitigating the effects of violence against health-care workers and patients during the COVID-19 response. It also contains a series of online references to help understand and implement these measures.
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This report is documenting the global incidence of attacks and threats against health workers, facilities, and transport around the world. The report cites 806 incidents of violence against or obstruction of health care in 43 countries and territories in ongoing wars and violent conflicts in 2020, r...anging from the bombing of hospitals in Yemen to the abduction of doctors in Nigeria. Attacks -- including killings, kidnappings, and sexual assaults, as well as destruction and damage of health facilities and transports -- compounded the threats to health in every country as health systems struggled to prepare for and respond to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Primary health care offers a cost–effective route to achieving universal health coverage (UHC). However, primary health-care systems are weak in many low- and middle-income countries and often fail to provide comprehensive, people-centred, integrated care. We analysed the primar...y health-care systems in 20 low- and middle-income countries using a semi-grounded approach. Options for strengthening primary health-care systems were identified by thematic content analysis. We found that: (i)despite the growing burden of noncommunicable disease, many low- and middle-income countries lacked funds for preventive services; (ii)community health workers were often under-resourced, poorly supported and lacked training; (iii)out-of-pocket expenditure exceeded 40% of total health expenditure in half the countries studied, which affected equity; and (iv)health insurance schemes were hampered by the fragmentation of public and private systems, underfunding, corruption and poor engagement of informal workers. In 14 countries, the private sector was largely unregulated. Moreover, community engagement in primary health care was weak in countries where services were largely privatized. In some countries, decentralization led to the fragmentation of primary health care. Performance improved when financial incentives were linked to regulation and quality improvement, and community involvement was strong. Policy-making should be supported by adequate resources for primary health-care implementation and government spending on primary health care should be increased by at least 1% of gross domestic product. Devising equity-enhancing financing schemes and improving the accountability of primary health-care management is also needed. Support from primary health-care systems is critical for progress towards UHC in the decade to 2030.
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CHWs are trained public health workers who serve as a bridge between communities, health care systems, and state health departments.
Resources on this page include:
Online courses, lessons learned, and best practices to help state health departments train and further build capacity for CHWs in th...eir communities.
Training and education materials for CHWs to use within their communities.
accessed 23.07.2021
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Frontline health workers (FHWs) provide services directly to communities where they are most needed, especially in remote and rural areas. Many are community health workers and midwives, though they can also include local emergency responders/paramedics, pharmacists, nurses, and doctors who serve in... community clinics.
The growing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) on low- and middle-income countries threatens many health systems that are already weakened. In many countries, health systems—and health workers—are not prepared to address the complex nature of NCDs. Health systems are often fragmented, and designed to respond to single episodes of care or long-term prevention and control of infectious diseases.1 Many countries also continue to face shortages and distribution challenges of trained and supported health workers. As most NCDs are multifactorial in origin and are detected later in their evolution, health systems face significant challenges to provide early detection as well as affordable, effective, and timely treatment, particularly in underserved communities.
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For the primary health worker in a low/middle-income country (LMIC) setting, delivering quality primary care is challenging. This is often complicated by clinical guidance that is out of date, inconsistent and informed by evidence from high-income countries that ignores LMIC resource constraints and... burden of disease. The Knowledge Translation Unit (KTU) of the University of Cape Town Lung Institute has developed, implemented and evaluated a health systems intervention in South Africa, and localised it to Botswana, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Brazil, that simplifies and standardises the care delivered by primary health workers while strengthening the system in which they work. At the core of this intervention, called Practical Approach to Care Kit (PACK), is a clinical decision support tool, the PACK guide. This paper describes the development of the guide over an 18-year period and explains the design features that have addressed what the patient, the clinician and the health system need from clinical guidance, and have made it, in the words of a South African primary care nurse, ‘A tool for every day for every patient’. It describes the lessons learnt during the development process that the KTU now applies to further development, maintenance and in-country localisation of the guide: develop clinical decision support in context first, involve local stakeholders in all stages, leverage others’ evidence databases to remain up to date and ensure content development, updating and localisation articulate with implementation.
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Failure to access and apply reliable healthcare information is a leading cause of preventable death and suffering worldwide. HIFA (Healthcare Information For All) is a global social movement to improve the availability and use of reliable healthcare information and reduce the harms of misinformation.... It has more than 20,000 members (health workers, librarians, publishers, researchers, policymakers...) and works closely with the World Health Organization.
accessed 30.07.2021
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This Global Competency Standards sets the benchmark for the health workforce in providing equality of care to refugees and migrants. Refugee and migrant populations are highly diverse, with significant variation in life experiences, health needs and access to health care. The standards described out...line expected behaviours of health workers in delivering quality care to refugees and migrants and can be used to inform the outcomes of education programmes aligned with standards for care. The Competency Standards is designed to provide a foundation to support the development of competency-based curricula tailored to the local context and for health workers to achieve a minimum level of competence. The importance of person-centred, culturally responsive care is emphasized in the nine competency standards, which recognize the need for health workers to be trained, supported and empowered within strong health systems
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Our OppiaMobile learning platform offers a wide variety of courses on primary health care to enhance the training of health workers worldwide.
These mobile-ready content includes quiz questions, and features video content from Medical Aid Films, Global Health Media Project, and other contributors.... It provides a source of information that can be used for both pre-service and in-service training and to reinforce critical health messages, so that health workers feel confident and empowered to deliver effective services in their communities.
Content adaptation is an iterative process, and Digital Campus will continue to improve its content with additional media and quizzes. All courses are created in Moodle, an open source learning platform used by millions of educators and learners in over 200 countries.
You can find courses for : Antenatal Care ; Postnatal Care; Labor and Delivery Care, Open WASH Courses....
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Patient Navigator & Community Health Worker Training. This course is organized into three modules that describe patient navigation’s role in reducing health disparities and improving treatment for chronic diseases.
CHWs demonstrated social commitment and purpose in the short term observed. The evaluation of the training of CHWs revealed that most demonstrated the necessary skills for referrals to prevent complications, caring for newborns and their mothers at home immediately after discharge from health care c...enters. CHW upskilling training on maternal-newborn services should be prioritized in the most affected areas.
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Community health workers (CHWs) enable marginalised communities, often experiencing structural poverty, to access healthcare. Trust, important in all patient–provider relationships, is difficult to build in such
communities, particularly when stigma associated with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and now ...COVID-19, is widespread.
CHWs, responsible for bringing people back into care, must repair trust. In South Africa, where a national CHW programme is being rolled out, marginalised communities have high levels of unemployment, domestic violence and injury. In this complex social environment, we explored CHW workplace trust, interpersonal trust between the patient and CHW, and the institutional trust patients place in the health system
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Self-care interventions are among the most promising and exciting new approaches to improve health and well-being, both from a health systems perspective and for people who use these interventions.
The World Health Organization (WHO) uses the following working definition of self-care: Self-care i...s the ability of individuals, families and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a health worker. The scope of self-care as described in this definition includes health promotion; disease prevention and control; self-medication; providing care to dependent persons; seeking hospital/specialist/primary care if necessary; and rehabilitation, including palliative care. It includes a range of self-care modes and approaches. While this is a broad definition that includes many activities, it is important for health policy to recognize the importance of self-care, especially where it intersects with health systems and health professionals.
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According to the latest available data, over half of the world’s population lack access to essential health services, and health worker shortages are estimated to reach 10 million by 2030. These contextual factors point to an urgent need to explore innovative strategies – that go beyond a conven...tional health-sector response – for reaching people with the health services they need.
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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic revealed systemic weaknesses in health-care systems
worldwide. The breadth of challenges left health workers overwhelmed and overstretched, reducing their professional efficacy and causing long-term issues with retention, recruitment and education of... future cohorts
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