Libyan National Health Services: The Need to Move to Management-by-Objectives

Abstract

In the last four decades, there has been a substantial horizontal expansion of health services in Libya. This resulted in improvement in morbidity and mortality, in particularly those related to infectious disease. However, measures such as the national performance gap indicator reveal an underperforming health system. In this article, we discuss aspects related to the Libyan health system and its current status including areas of weakness. Overcoming current failures and further improvement are unlikely to occur spontaneously without proper planning. Defining community health problems, identifying unmet needs, surveying resources to meet them, establishing SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, and realistic and time specific) objectives, and projecting administrative action to accomplish the proposed programs, are a must. The health system should rely on newer approaches such as management-by-objectives and risk-management rather than the prevailing crisis-management attitude.

Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension in the United States: Demographic and Socioeconomic Disparities

“…Similarly, variations in healthcare systems and accessibility may also contribute to incidence differences. Notably, the larger incidence of 2.2 (1982–1989) in Libya and 4.69 (2016) in England, relative to 1.15 (1997–2016) in the US, could in part arise secondary nearly all Libyan and UK citizens being insured—while 40 million Americans were uninsured in 2003 and 27.5 million in 2017 (8.5% of population) ( 36 – 41 ). Likewise, differing proportions of at-risk demographics (i.e., obese, female, low income, etc.)…”

A comparative analysis of the Libyan national essential medicines list and the WHO model list of essential medicines

“…Nevertheless, even in such settings, fixed dose combinations enhance patient compliance by decreasing ‘pill burden’ (18). The importance of providing the best available pharmaceutical products, including fixed dose combinations to treat tuberculosis, is reinforced by evidence of a substantial increase in the number of reported tuberculosis cases over the last 15 years in Libya (20). In addition, although information from the WHO Libyan country profile (13) indicates the existence of multidrug resistant tuberculosis, three out of seven treatments recommended by the WHO for the treatment of multidrug resistant tuberculosis were not listed on the LPLEM.…”

<p>Telepsychiatry in the Arab World: A Viewpoint Before and During COVID-19</p>

“…Telepsychiatry services have been present prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in most Arab countries of interest (Table 1). [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40] The services, available via governmental, non-governmental, or private institutions, mainly involve phoneline call centers and messaging services. Less frequently, hotlines designed for mental health and video conferences have been established.…”