In this commentary in Nature, the authors argue that the rapid expansion of health markets in Asia and Africa has made medicines, information and primary-care services available in all but the most remote areas. But it also creates problems with drug safety and efficiency, equity of treatment and the cost of care. Poorly trained practitioners often prescribe unnecessary pills or injections, with patients bearing the expense and the costs to their health. Counterfeit drugs are rife and drug resistance is growing. Bringing order to unruly health markets is a major challenge.
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Dr Gerald Bloom from IDS presents in a plenary session at the Health Systems Reform in Asia conference in Hong Kong on 11 December 2011. He focuses on the need to consider the complex mixed health systems when setting an evaluation research agenda.
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Despite increased prominence and funding of global health initiatives, efforts to scale up health services in developing countries are falling short of the expectations of the Millennium Development Goals. Arguing that the dominant assumptions for scaling up are inadequate, we propose that interpreting change in health systems through the lens of complex adaptive systems (CAS) provides better models of pathways for scaling up.
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The presentation by Dr David Bishai was given at the First Complex Adaptive Systems Training Workshop for CNHDRC, which was held in Beijing, China, from 18-19 July. It outlines the origins of complex adaptive systems thinking in social sciences.
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The presentation by Professor David Peters was given at the First Complex Adaptive Systems Training Workshop for CNHDRC, which was held in Beijing, China, from 18-19 July. It explains the basic elements of health systems and how they relate to a complex adaptive systems approach.
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In this first podcast from Future Health Systems, Jeff Knezovich finds out what complexity science is, and how a complex adaptive systems approach can help scale up health systems interventions. We find out from Ben Ramalingam about the history of complexity science, while Professor David Peters explains a few key concepts of complex adaptive systems.
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Xiao, Y. et al. (2011) Implementation of National Essential Drug Policy: Analysis from a Complex Adaptive Systems Perspective. Chinese General Practice, Volume 14, 5A: 1419-1421.
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This presentation by Ligia Paina & David Peters was given as part of a Future Health System Consortium session at the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research. It is part of our Beyond Scaling Up stream of work.
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