As a substantial part of the health budget in many countries is used to purchase pharmaceutical products, procurement of drugs is obviously a crucial function. Various types of tender mechanisms as well as direct procurement are described and discussed. A good way for small procurement agencies to ensure product quality is to conduct restricted tenders to which only prequalified suppli…
In 2000, the World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledged the need to further explore the relationship between health and the economy by setting up the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (CMH). One of the main conclusions of the work of CMH was that investing in health could not only be of intrinsic value but could in addition produce important economic gains. In response to the growing …
This Manual is designed to be a quick-and-easy, user-friendly reference for the development of health management information systems (HMIS), with the focus on applications. It serves as a primer on HMIS development and provides a general overview of the basic principles, as well as the fundamental steps and issues involved in the different activities to be undertaken. The information is pre…
The Global Water Supply and Sanitation Assessment 2000, a report prepared jointly by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), indicated that nearly 1.1 billion (1100 million) people have no access to improved water sources and that about 2.4 billion have no access to any form of improved sanitation facilities, with the vast majority of these people …
Health care waste management (HCWM) has been described as “a process to help ensure proper hospital hygiene and the safety of health care workers and communities. It includes planning and procurement, construction, staff training and behavior, proper use of tools, machines and pharmaceuticals, proper disposal methods inside and outside the hospital, and evaluation.”1 Health care waste manag…
The Global Water Supply and Sanitation Assessment 2000, a report prepared jointly by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), indicated that nearly 1.1 billion (1100 million) people have no access to improved water sources and that about 2.4 billion have no access to any form of improved sanitation facilities, with the vast majority of these people …
Influenza pandemics are unpredictable but recurring events that can have consequences on human health and economic well-being worldwide. Advance planning and preparedness are critical to help mitigate the impact of a pandemic. This WHO guidance document, Pandemic Influenza Risk Management, updates and replaces Pandemic influenza preparedness and response: a WHO guidance document, which was publ…
Laboratory quality can be defined as accuracy, reliability and timeliness of reported test results. The laboratory results must be as accurate as possible, all aspects of the laboratory operations must be reliable, and reporting must be timely in order to be useful in a clinical or public health setting. When making measurements, there is always some level of inaccuracy. The challenge is t…