Coordinated framework for regulation of biotechnology; announcement of policy; notice for public comment.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Advisory Committees↗
SEARCH · Search PubMed
Results for “policy frameworks”
Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
A framework for doctoral education in health administration and policy.
The fundamental building block upon which the whole edifice of education for health services administration rests is doctoral education. Programs can be no better than the quantity and quality of doctoral graduates available to them. In turn, these graduates can be no better than the programs in which they were trained. The purpose of the present paper is to propose a framework for analyzing five different types of doctoral programs in health services administration and policy. First, five models of doctoral education in health services administration and policy are proposed and described. Second, the advantages and disadvantages of each of these models are described fro the viewpoint of the producer. Third, the most appropriate matches of program types and customer orientations are outlined. The basic premise of the paper is that the employers of doctoral graduates occupy (implicitly or explicitly) a limited set of market niches. No single doctoral program can meet the needs of all potential employers. Nor should the potential employer expect that all program types will produce graduates equally capable of meeting their needs.
Curriculum↗
[Social policy and a plan for mental health].
Social policy is defined; starting with the concept of health, actions are described and specified beyond the traditional medical model. Using drug dependency as an example, the concepts of damage and vulnerability are applied to illustrate how mental health actions operate in the development of social medicine and place it in the framework of social policy. The need for such a policy is outlined, with a strategy stemming from it. Priority actions in the mental health field are specified and it is shown that actions go beyond professional activities as understood in the traditional models.
Female↗
Quality improvement projects: finding a pathway through policies.
It is increasingly common for mental health nurses to develop and implement quality improvement and/or research projects. The requirement that these activities be conducted in accordance with local, state and national policy; organizational accreditation frameworks; and within ethical frameworks is daunting. This paper aims to define relevant terms, relate some of the competing demands to each other and outline a pathway for developing nurse-based quality-related projects. When a specific exemplar is required, protocols from Central Sydney Area Mental Health Service will be drawn upon as it is likely that policy developed in this health area will not be significantly different to that of other health areas in New South Wales and other Australian States.
Australia↗
Cancer control policy in Australia.
Australia has an evolving national cancer control agenda. In this paper, we review the history and development of cancer control policies in Australia up to the end of 2005, and discuss the principal publications produced by both government and non-government groups which have given rise to cancer control recommendations, goals and targets. These cancer control plans have arisen in response to the impact of cancer on the Australian community and in recognition of the health gains that can be made through effective cancer control. They have been developed either in the context of a broader framework of health policy or as specific endeavours in regard to cancer. The specific recommendations and strategies proposed have focused on reducing the impact of cancer in the Australian population. Most commonly, recommendations, goals, and targets within the cancer control plans have addressed points along the continuum of care, specific cancers, and frameworks and processes. The strength of these reports is their comprehensive approach in identifying priority cancers and areas where specific developments should impact on morbidity and mortality. In the future, cancer control plans should be better supported by economic evaluations, and greater financial support for implementation and regular assessment is needed to identify progress on cancer outcomes. The more recent national and State cancer control plans include the development of frameworks to foster a coordinated and cohesive approach to the delivery of cancer care. These plans represent important reforms in cancer care in Australia, and have the potential to reduce the impact of cancer on the community and improve health outcomes.
Journal Article↗
The need for a holistic view of telemedicine, focused on patients and society as prime stakeholders.
Telemedicine provides the scope to remove the barrier of distance from delivery of health care. In so doing it has the potential to strengthen primary care and local health delivery, and to optimise the use of secondary and tertiary specialist resources. However, it can have disbenefits and perverse effects which are as yet inadequately addressed. Development of telemedicine to date has been led by new technological opportunities, linked to clinical interests. Whilst not inappropriate, this alone is not adequate. All health care activities should be to promote health and treat ill-health, and therefore the interests of the consumer and of society should predominate. More complete research and policy analysis of telemedicine are therefore needed. This paper argues for a more holistic and integrated view of telemedicine to be taken, to ensure that technology is harnessed to meet need. To this end, it puts telemedicine into the overall context of health care interests, and describes methodologies to assess patient attitudes and societal priorities. Given the need to avoid the unanticipated adverse effects which have bedevilled other new health care technologies, and the particular risks of uncontrolled consultations and commerce across national boundaries, the paper goes on to advocate routine use of integrated risk analysis of telemedicine applications at research and policy levels. The need for an effects-orientated analytic framework, and for international policy collaboration to protect users of services available by global telecommunications, is identified.
Health Policy↗
Breastfeeding determinants and a suggested framework for action in Europe.
This is a background paper for the EURODIET initiative. A number of international initiatives and documents were identified, such as the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative, the International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes and a number of consensus reports from professional groups, that propose ways forward for breastfeeding promotion. These point at a range of initiatives on different levels. The determinants for successful breastfeeding have to be identified. They can be categorised into five groups; socio-demographic, psycho-social, health care related, community- and policy attributes. A framework for future breastfeeding promoting efforts on European level is suggested, within which these determinants are considered. A common surveillance system needs to be built in Europe, where determinants of breastfeeding are included. There is also a need for a surveillance system which makes it possible to use the collected data on local level, not only on national and supranational level. Combined with a thorough review of the effectiveness of already existing breastfeeding promotion programmes, a co-ordinated EU-EFTA action plan on breastfeeding should be formulated and implemented within a few years. Urgent action could take place in parallel, especially targeting young, low-income, less educated mothers.
Breast Feeding↗
The spectrum of prevention: developing a comprehensive approach to injury prevention.
OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this paper is to describe the "spectrum of prevention", a framework for developing multifaceted approaches to injury prevention. The value of the tool is that it can help practitioners develop and structure comprehensive initiatives. METHODS: The spectrum is comprised of six inter-related action levels: (1) strengthening individual knowledge and skills, (2) promoting community education, (3) educating providers, (4) fostering coalitions and networks, (5) changing organizational practices, and (6) influencing policy and legislation. Activities at each of these levels have the potential to support each other and promote overall community health and safety. CONCLUSIONS: The spectrum of prevention is a tool which can help practitioners and policy leaders move beyond a primarily educational approach to achieve broad community goals through injury prevention strategies that include policy development. This framework has been endorsed and applied in a variety of disciplines, however it has not been formally evaluated, a process that could clarify the scope of its effectiveness.
Community Participation↗
Wanted: a new ethics field for health policy analysis.
Ethics guidance and ethical frameworks are becoming more explicit and prevalent in health policy proposals. However, little attention has been given to evaluating their roles and impacts in the policy arena. Before this can be investigated, fundamental questions must be asked about the nature of ethics in relation to policy, and about the nexus of the fields of applied ethical analysis and health policy analysis. This paper examines the interdisciplinary stretch between bioethics and health policy analysis. In particular, it highlights areas of scholarship where a health policy ethics specialization--as distinctive from bioethics--might develop to address health policy concerns. If policy and ethics both ask the same question, that question is: "What is the good, and how do we achieve (create, protect, cultivate) it?" To answer this question, the new field of "health policy ethics" requires development. First, we should develop a full set of ethical principles and complementary ethical theories germane to public policy per se. Second, we must understand better how explicit attention to ethical concerns affects policy dynamics. Third, we require new policy and ethical analytic approaches that contribute to constructive (not obstructive) policy making. Finally, we need indicators of robust, high quality ethical analysis for the purpose public policy making.
Benchmarking↗
The precautionary principle: between responsibility and policy.
It is important to distinguish between the idea of the "precautionary principle", a precise concept that made its appearance under specific circumstances in the 70s in order to respond to certain environment-related issues, and the idea of "precaution", itself more or less confused with the idea of "caution", a term used to describe a general attitude to risk and uncertainty. Although it is easy to identify the notion of "precaution" with a general philosophy of responsibility, the "precautionary principle" has no meaning except when used to describe public precautionary policies. And though we cannot give a precise definition of the idea of precaution, in the sense of caution, we can however give a precise description of the "precautionary principle", based on the techniques, always specific, which are implemented in the name of the precautionary principle. In France we have developed the habit of considering precautionary actions as part of an overall moral principle, while totally disregarding the laws defining the "precautionary principle" and including it within the power framework of state policy. It is essential to clear up this confusion, along with all of its potentially dangerous legal consequences, before we can envisage an informed discussion on the "precautionary principle", its field of application and the conditions governing its implementation.
Decision Making↗
[The general practitioner and community medical services].
The writer defines the role of the general practitioner in the setting of the health system of Panama and in relation to the individual, the family and the community, in the framework of the policy of extending the coverage of health services to the entire population. He stresses that modern medicine has to focus on the whole person, and he concludes therefrom that the physician must be prepared to provide comprehensive care. He emphasizes that, to overcome the limitations that now weigh upon medical education, in the internship stage the training of the general practitioner must begin at the level of a specialty and be completed later with two or three years of theoretical and practical instruction. This requires strengthened instruction in comprehensive outpatient care, extensive contact with rural and urban communities, and that teaching programs be set in the framework of the health services and facilities. He also feels that the general physician already practicing should be offered the opportunity of qualifying under an in-service education program as a specialist in comprehensive, general or family medicine, with a certification system that includes the approval of academic studies and the performance of research work.
Community Health Services↗
Values in psychiatric diagnosis: developments in policy, training and research.
Diagnosis, although traditionally thought to be a value-free scientific process, incorporates values, for example in judgements of impaired functioning and clinical significance. Such judgements are particularly problematic in psychiatry because the values concerned are often diverse and hence potentially conflicting. Values-based practice is the theory and clinical skills-base for effective healthcare decision-making where, as in relation to psychiatric diagnosis, diverse and conflicting values are in play. The paper describes recent developments in values-based practice in the UK and with international partners, in policy (a national framework for values-based practice in mental health service provision), training (a training manual launched recently by the Minister responsible for mental health in the UK) and research (including an international research methods meeting on psychiatric diagnosis funded by the National Institute for Mental Health in England).
Diagnosis, Differential↗
Biotechnology policy and achievement 1980-88.
Much progress has been made in line with the spirit of Spinks, but it is inevitable that perspectives have changed since 1980. At the research level, we know that much strategic work remains to be done before the full industrial benefits of biotechnology can be secured, even though there has been a gratifying improvement in academic-industrial liaison. The industrial progress and dissemination of biotechnology has been slower than Spinks implied, but we have a clear understanding of the importance of such contributors to the climate for investment as balanced regulation, training and public perception. The international dimension is important not only for the potential benefit of research and development programmes but also to monitor progress in the U.K. with respect to our competitors. Biotechnology now finds itself in a new framework of Government policy for innovation; there are new challenges in sustaining and adding to the impetus built up by the academic and industrial communities.
Biotechnology↗
The 'family' context of HIV: a need for comprehensive health and social policies.
This paper reports on the findings from a multi-site psychosocial study of Canadian families with HIV-positive mothers. A total of 110 adults, representing 91 families across Canada participated in interviews. Qualitative analysis revealed a number of themes including: a complex web of personal, health and family concerns; the needs of children; family finances; disclosure dilemmas; and social experiences and challenges. These themes reflect an intricate and dynamic picture of parental and family life for adults and children living with HIV infection. Nowhere in the literature do we see HIV framed as a 'family infection'. Surveillance reporting reflects information on infected adults and children but not family groupings. Yet with HIV several family members and multiple generations as well as single or both parents may be infected, highlighting the importance of 'family HIV' as a framework for health policy and programme development. At issue is the problem that medical and other institutions view issues of surveillance, treatment and care through the lens of the infected individual, rather than being family focused. Often it is only in the context of identifying support, or barriers to support, for the medically diagnosed individual that biological or socially created families become a focus of concern. The failure to situate both chronic and life-threatening illnesses within the family setting has serious quality of life and planning consequences for parents and children living with HIV infection as well as other illnesses.
Adolescent↗
[Oral-dental health in the national health system of Burkina Faso].
Oral health has a low priority in the health care and national health policies of Burkina Faso because of the high mortality rate and the occurrence of endemic and epidemic diseases. However, Burkina Faso, like other developing countries, is now having to cope with increases in the incidence of oral diseases. The World Health Organization has emphasized the need to develop national oral health plans into integrated general health plans based on primary health care, to achieve its "Health for All" targets by the year 2000. The aim of this paper is to highlight the political, administrative and economic constraints involved in implementing oral health policies within the framework of primary health care in this country. The organization of oral health services, understanding and compliance with a multidisciplinary approach by oral health care staff and the promotion of oral health in a community-based approach are vital for the integration of oral health care into the general health plan.
Adult↗
Addressing the human resources crisis: a case study of the Namibian health service.
BACKGROUND: This paper addresses an important practical challenge to staff management. In 2000 the United Nations committed themselves to the ambitious targets embodied in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Only five years later, it was clear that poor countries were not on track to achieve them. It was also clear that achieving the three out of the eight MDGs that concern health would only be possible if the appropriate human resources (HR) were in place. METHODS: We use a case study based on semi-structured interview data to explore the steps that Namibia, a country facing severe health problems that include an alarmingly high AIDS infection rate, has taken to manage its health workers. RESULTS: In the fifteen years since independence, Namibia has patiently built up a relatively good strategic framework for health policy in the context of government policy as a whole, including strong training arrangements at every level of health staffing, and it has brought HIV/AIDS under the strategic umbrella through its National Strategic Plan for HIV/AIDS. Its major weakness is that it has not kept pace with the rise in HIV/AIDS and TB infection: the community counselling service, still at the pilot stage at the time of this study, was the only specific response. That has created a tension between building long-term capacity in a strategic context and responding to the short-term demands of the AIDS and TB crisis, which in turn affects the ability of HR to contribute to improving health outcomes. CONCLUSION: It is suggested that countries like Namibia need a new paradigm for staffing their health services. Building on the existing strategic framework, it should target the training of 'mid-level cadres'. Higher-level cadres should take on the role of supporting and monitoring the mid-level cadres. To do that, they will need management training and a performance management framework for staff support and monitoring.
Journal Article↗
Performance of community-based animal health workers in the delivery of livestock health services.
Since the liberalization of animal health services in Kenya in the early 1990s, community-based animal health workers (CBAHWs) have become an important alternative animal health delivery channel in the country's marginal areas. However, professional veterinary practitioners have questioned the effectiveness of CBAHW programmes in animal health service delivery in Kenya. This is partly due to lack of information about their performance and partly because CBAHW programmes were implemented before the necessary changes in the existing legal, policy and institutional frameworks had been made. This study was designed to provide such information. In this regard, the productivity of livestock herds among farmers who utilized the services of CBAHWs was compared to that of livestock belonging to farmers who utilized the services of professional veterinarians. The annual live births per mature female (birth ratio) and the proportion of young stock to mature females (breeding index) was computed over a period of 3 years in cattle and goat herds under care of CBAHWs and professional veterinarians. The birth ratios in cattle and goats under CBAHWs were not significantly different from those under the care of professional veterinarians (p > 0.05). Furthermore, the breeding index of cattle and goats under the two categories was not statistically different. Besides the CBAHWs providing clinical services, they also created positive externalities through participatory learning enjoyed by neighbouring livestock keepers, who later dispensed with their services. Policy attention is therefore needed to enhance the participation of CBAHWs in animal health service delivery and to appropriately integrate their activities into the existing formal animal health delivery system in Kenya. Interventions that improve the professional development of these workers, with emphasis on areas pertaining to care of young stock, would not only promote the sustainability of CBAHW programmes but would also improve livestock productivity in the country's marginal areas.
Animal Husbandry↗
MCH functions framework: a guide to the role of government in maternal and child health in the 21st century.
OBJECTIVES: At the close of the 20th century, the government's role in maternal and child health is in a state of transition. What is needed is a framework defining roles and responsibilities and guidance on how to operationalize these functions. This article presents the Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Functions Framework and discusses its value as an advocacy, planning, evaluation, and educational tool. METHODS: The Johns Hopkins Child and Adolescent Health Policy Center developed the Framework in collaboration with leading public health organizations. The process entailed formulating a conceptual approach and facilitating consensus among the relevant organizations. RESULTS: The Framework consists of three main components: (a) a list of ten essential public health services to promote maternal and child health, (b) an outline detailing program functions specific to MCH that apply to all levels of government and to all MCH populations, and (c) selected examples of local, state, and federal activities for implementing MCH program functions. CONCLUSIONS: The MCH Functions Framework can be used in advocacy, policy development, program planning, organizational assessment, education, and training. To date, it has been used by several state and local MCH agencies and in MCH education and training programs.
Adult↗