How can guideline development and policy development be linked?
2012-03-14
(Press-News.org) In the second paper in a three-part series on health systems guidance, John Lavis of McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada and colleagues explore the challenge of linking guidance development and policy development at global and national levels. Writing in this week's PLoS Medicine, the authors call for a division of labour between global guidance developers, global policy developers, national guidance developers, and national policy developers, and argue that a panel charged with developing health systems guidance at the global level could best add value by ensuring that its output can be used for policy development at the global and national level, and for guidance development at the national level.
The authors state: "Our examination of the range of factors that can influence policy development (and that can be flagged for consideration in health systems guidance) highlights the need for rigorous system and political analyses in policy briefs at the national level."
In last week's PLoS Medicine, Xavier Bosch-Capblanch and colleagues, in the first paper in the health systems guidance series, examined how guidance is currently formulated in low- and middle-income countries, and the challenges to developing such guidance, such as the translation of research. The authors suggested that further research is needed to adapt existing approaches (e.g., those used in clinical guidelines) to produce meaningful advice that accounts for the complexity of health systems, political systems, and contexts.
INFORMATION:
Funding: The development of the Handbook was supported by a grant to the WHO by the Rockefeller Foundation, which had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The paper represents the views of the authors and neither WHO nor the Rockefeller Foundation.
Competing Interests: The Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute and the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services received funds from the WHO for the contributions of XBC and SL to developing the Handbook to produce health systems guidance, and some of this work is reported in this article. All other authors declare no competing interests.
Citation: Lavis JN, Røttingen J-A, Bosch-Capblanch X, Atun R, El-Jardali F, et al. (2012) Guidance for Evidence-Informed Policies about Health Systems: Linking Guidance Development to Policy Development. PLoS Med 9(3): e1001186. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001186
CONTACT:
John Lavis
McMaster Health Forum, Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis
Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and Department of Political Science
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario
Canada
lavisj@mcmaster.ca
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2012-03-14
VIDEO:
Kurt Brunden, Ph.D., Director of Drug Discovery at Penn's Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research, explains a new Journal of Neuroscience study which shows that the compound epothilone D is effective...
Click here for more information.
PHILADELPHIA – A study published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience shows that the compound epothilone D (EpoD) is effective in preventing further neurological damage and improving cognitive performance in a mouse model of ...
2012-03-14
CHICAGO – Among hospitals in Ontario, Canada, those with higher levels of spending, which included higher intensity nursing and greater use of specialists and procedures, had an associated lower rate of deaths, hospital readmissions, and better quality of care for severely ill hospitalized patients, according to a study in the March 14 issue of JAMA.
Studies have investigated whether higher health care spending produces better patient outcomes and higher quality of care, with conflicting evidence in the United States and other countries. "The extent to which better spending ...
2012-03-14
CHICAGO – Certain mutations of the gene ATRX were associated with age at diagnosis in children and young adults with advanced-stage neuroblastoma, a cancer that grows in parts of the nervous system, according to a study in the March 14 issue of JAMA.
Neuroblastoma is the most common extracranial (outside the cranium) solid tumor of childhood and accounts for 15 percent of all cancer-related deaths in children. "Half of the patients (50 percent) with neuroblastoma present with metastatic disease; with current treatment approaches, the age at diagnosis has proven to be ...
2012-03-14
CHICAGO – In a small, preliminary trial, patients with infected necrotizing pancreatitis (severe form of the disease involving devitalized pancreatic tissue) who received a less-invasive procedure, endoscopic transgastric necrosectomy (removal of the pancreatic tissue), had an associated lower risk of major complications and death compared to patients who had surgical necrosectomy, according to a study in the March 14 issue of JAMA.
"Acute pancreatitis is a common and potentially lethal disorder. In the United States alone, more than 50,000 patients are admitted with ...
2012-03-14
CHICAGO – In the E coli outbreak in Germany in May 2011, treatment with azithromycin was associated with a lower frequency of long-term carriage of the bacteria and shorter duration of shedding of the bacteria in stool specimens, according to a study in the March 14 issue of JAMA.
"Since May 2011, a large outbreak of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) has caused 3,816 documented infections in Germany, including 845 confirmed cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome [HUS; a condition characterized by the breakup of red blood cells and kidney failure]," the authors ...
2012-03-14
Washington, DC — A compound that previously progressed to Phase II clinical trials for cancer treatment slows neurological damage and improves brain function in an animal model of Alzheimer's disease, according to a study in the March 14 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The findings suggest the drug epothilone D (EpoD) may one day prove useful for treating people with early-stage Alzheimer's disease.
Nerve cells in people with Alzheimer's disease contain tangles — distorted clumps made up of the protein tau. Under normal circumstances, tau helps stabilize structures ...
2012-03-14
A nightly breathing treatment may do more than help people with obstructive sleep apnea get a good night's rest — it may also help prevent heart failure.
In a study published in Circulation: Heart Failure, a journal of the American Heart Association, researchers in the U.K. discovered that moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) can cause changes in the heart's shape and function, similar to the effects of hypertension. These changes include increased mass, thickening of the heart wall and reduced pumping ability.
But, six months after continuous positive airway ...
2012-03-14
Mobile phones could play a valuable role in helping HIV patients to take their medication every day, according to a new Cochrane Systematic Review. The researchers found that patients were less likely to miss doses if they were sent weekly mobile phone text message reminders.
Text messaging is increasingly being used as a means of support in health care, including to help promote attendance at clinics and hospitals, and to increase contact between patients and care workers. There is also some evidence that text messaging helps tuberculosis patients to take their daily ...
2012-03-14
Survival rates for cancer patients may be improved by treatment in specialised cancer centres, according to Cochrane researchers. In a review of recent studies, they found that women diagnosed with gynaecological cancer lived longer when treated in specialist compared to non-specialist units.
In the past, cancer patients were often treated by non-specialist surgeons and hospitals. This is changing and in developed countries, most cancer care is now organised into networks of specialised centres, with on-site experts and specialised nursing staff. This centralised approach, ...
2012-03-14
There is better evidence for the effectiveness of drug-based approaches for relieving labour pains than non-drug approaches. These are the findings of an all-encompassing publishing in The Cochrane Library, which draws together results from a number of previous reviews on the subject.
Many different approaches are used to relieve pain in labour, but not all are supported by strong evidence. The researchers brought together the results of 15 previous Cochrane reviews and three non-Cochrane reviews, including data from 310 trials in total. To try to distinguish between ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] How can guideline development and policy development be linked?
