Towards sustainable dilivery of health services in Afghanistan: options for the future

Trends in the quality of health care for children aged less than 5 years in Afghanistan, 2004–2006

“…The finding that the type of contracting mechanism can affect the quality of the care given by providers raises opportunities for benchmarking best practices in health service delivery. 6 Further empirical evidence is needed to assess how improvements in clinical care affect health outcomes or other aspects of the health system. The inclusion of data on community-based efforts for prevention, improvement of health-care seeking behaviours and reduced disease burden would provide more realistic measures of health system performance.…”

“…Under an innovative "contracting-in" mechanism, state providers are sometimes contracted by the government under the same conditions and targets set for NGOs and are eligible for performance bonuses. 6 Services are implemented at three health facility levels: basic health centres, comprehensive health centres and district hospitals. According to a report, in 2006 approximately 82% of the Afghan population had access to basic health services.…”

“…According to a report, in 2006 approximately 82% of the Afghan population had access to basic health services. 6 Since 2004, the BPHS has been assessed through Afghanistan's National Health Service Performance Assessment. This assessment provides an overall measure of system performance and patient care by employing a balanced scorecard (used to manage performance in large and complex organizations) to measure six performance domains: patient and community perspectives, staff perspectives, capacity for service provision, service provision, financial systems and overall vision.…”

U.S. Health Diplomacy in Afghanistan: A Development Tool in Health System Reconstruction of a Fragile and Conflict-Affected State

“…Furthermore, a shortage of doctors was propagated by insufficient medical training programs, many of which lacked a standardized curriculum and failed to provide student physicians with adequate treatment protocols or clinical experience (Sharp et al, 2002;Richards, 2003). This shortage of adequately trained healthcare professionals ultimately positioned NGOs as the most important source of primary healthcare, as they delivered approximately 80% of all health services in Afghanistan in 2002 (Sabri et al, 2007;Afghan Ministry of Health(a), 2002).…”

Capacity building of public health laboratories in Afghanistan: challenges and successes [2007-2011]

“…Dilapidated water supplies and distribution systems, poor sewage disposal systems and pollution of the Amu Darya river have contributed significantly to the spread of diarrhoea and other infectious diseases [2,3]. While respiratory diseases prevail during the extreme climate in winter, disease vectors flourish in the warmer summer months [4].…”