The official said that the aim of the conference was to seek feedback from national and international experts.
LAHORE:
The Punjab government will detail its strategy to reform the public healthcare system over the next five years and seek input from local and foreign experts at a two-day conference starting on Tuesday (today).
A Health Department official told The Express Tribune that the reforms strategy had five main aims: first, to increase provisions for preventive care by correcting the imbalance between curative care and preventive health care in government spending; second, to realign the role of government “as the steward, financier, purchaser and regulator of health rather than only a provider of health services”; third, to harness private capacities and skills, for example, service delivery through partnerships in medical education; fourth, to revisit the health financing paradigm by investment in preventive care and by addressing equity issues through social safety nets for health and health insurance mechanisms, particularly for the poor; and fifth, to adopt an outcome and results-based approach rather than the conventional inputs and process-oriented style the focus would be on improving performance for service delivery (expanding coverage, ensuring quality and addressing equity) rather than just creating physical assets, the official said.
The strategy is divided into five areas: governance and accountability; health financing; health information system; health human resource; and medical products and technology.
The official said that the aim of the conference was to seek feedback from national and international experts.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 2nd, 2013.
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