Search

Background. Successful aging is the feeling of inner satisfaction and happiness of the person from his/her current and past life. Implementation of this concept in societies requires attention in macro plans and policies. This study, therefore, aimed to study the coverage of the concept of successful aging in the health programs of Iran and selected countries. Methods. In this comparative study, the literature was first reviewed. To this end, the internal websites were searched and the documents and circulars of the Ministry of Health along with the developed and implemented programs regarding the elderly were extracted. Then, the components highlighted in each program were identified. Finally, the elements and components of the coverage of the concept of successful aging in the health programs of Iran was investigated with other selected countries in this field and the existing gaps were compared. Results. Elements and components of the successful aging in all programs were determined after examining the country's health programs. The sub-components of health promotion, provision of appropriate health services, as well as medical and treatment services were highlighted in most of the country's health program packages; however, the sub-components of disease prevention, long-term care, adherence of the elderly to the application of provided services, social support, education and literacy, income, insurance and social support, as well as employment were not taken into consideration in any of the programs. The health programs of the two countries (i.e., Canada and the United States) out of all other examined countries were highly compatible with the components of successful aging in the framework developed by the World Health Organization. Conclusion. Since no importance was attached to the components such as prevention of diseases, long-term care, and adherence of the elderly to the application of provided services, it was recommended that the health policy makers should fill the existing gap by following the examples of successful old age programs in the selected countries. Moreover, it was found absolutely necessary to provide components such as social support, education and literacy, insurance and employment, as well as inter-sectoral conflict at the welfare, education, economy, and finance ministerial levels.

Abstract Background This study aimed to reflect on scientific experts’ and executive stakeholders’ opinions on how charitable organizations can participate in the health care system properly and cope with problems, challenges, strategies, and executive requirements at three major levels of prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation. Methods A total number of 20 semi-structured interviews were conducted with scientific experts and executive stakeholders, selected for this qualitative study, based on an interview guide. Using the purposeful sampling method, we selected scientific experts with 5 years of experience in the health care system and executive stakeholders who had 5 years of experience in charitable activities. We applied a framework method for data analysis, and the main themes were extracted through MAXQDA software. Results Our findings revealed that charitable organizations at the major levels of the health care system, i.e., prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation, possessed the necessary capacities to provide services effectively. Nevertheless, charities encountered some problems, e.g., financial instability, non-recognition of donors’ legal status, non-involvement in policy-making, inadequate cooperation from other agencies, absence of transparent programs and goals, together with weaknesses in advertising and attracting donations. It was noted that the government should take more operational steps towards supporting such organizations, e.g., by granting special facilities and exemptions, engaging charities in policy-making and training processes, and empowering them in terms of the production of resources. Charitable organizations are also recommended to establish external communications with other bodies such as municipalities, secretaries of state, governorate offices, welfare organizations, relief committees, and medical sciences universities. Conclusions Charitable organizations have the potentials to provide health care services at prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation levels. Thus, it is of utmost importance to adopt strategies such as creating sustainable funding sources, training charity managers with a wide variety of scientific management techniques, and implementing their intellectual capacities in legislative and planning processes.

BACKGROUND: The World Health Organization (WHO) considers a safe operating room as one of the necessities of hospitals that support patients. Achieving safety in surgical operations in all countries of the world is the basic goal of healthcare centers and organizations; hence, the present study investigated the challenges and prerequisites for the implementation of an active risk management program in the operating rooms of Iranian hospitals. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This qualitative-phenomenological study was conducted in 2022. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews, targeted sampling, and the participation of 20 experts (health policy and management experts and academic officials and faculty members of universities) and executive staff (nurses and operating room technicians, doctors and surgical specialists, and officials of surgical departments) and were analyzed using the framework analysis method. RESULTS: In the resulting qualitative study, the challenges and prerequisites for active risk management in the operating room from the point of view of experts and executive staff were divided into three sub-themes. These three themes include managerial challenges and prerequisites, organizational resources (financial resources, human resources, equipment, and facilities), and cultural issues. CONCLUSION: Considering managerial prerequisites, organizational resources (financial, human, equipment, and facilities), cultural issues, and removing challenges, an active risk management program in the operating room can be implemented correctly. With the correct implementation of this program, injuries in the operating room for personnel and patients will be greatly reduced, and the satisfaction of beneficiaries and the productivity of the hospital will be greatly increased.

Background: Despite huge advances in improving most health indicators, Iranian primary health care (PHC) has faced several problems in improving the quality of care inside the health care system. Developed countries with similar problems have used various models of PHC governance for improving quality in their PHC system. This study aimed to obtain health professionals’ perspectives about the suitable pillars and components of Iran's PHC governance model. Methods: A purposeful sampling method was used to select seven participants who had a minimum of five years of experience in PHC and background education in the field of medical sciences. Between Jan and Jun 2015, three focus group discussions (FGD) were conducted with seven PHC experts in Tabriz. Data were analyzed using the conventional content analysis method. Results: The eight main categories including quality improvement, management and leadership, community involvement and customer participation, effectiveness of PHC, human resource development, safety, health care evaluation and audit, and health information management plus 51 sub-categories were identified according to participants' expects about the essential pillars and components for Iranian PHC governance model. Conclusion: Pillars that suggested for designing Iran’s PHC governance model are presented according to internal informed expert’s opinions and taking into account PHC system real status. By adding the degree of importance for each component and proper performance indicators to this collection, assessing the progress of the PHC system towards excellence will be possible and it will prevent any mental judgments about system performance.

Background: After the establishment of Primary Health Care (PHC) program in Iran, health indicators have improved every year. This progress was so rapid that a number of shortcomings and weaknesses of the PHC program remained silent behind its successes. This study aimed to assess the status of Iran’s PHC system (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) in terms of health system’s control knobs. Methods: The search was conducted through two English `databases of Web of Knowledge and PubMed, two English publications of Science Direct and Springer and two Persian databases of Magiran and SID. Keywords were selected from MeSH and included primary health care, PHC and Iran in both Persian and English. No time limit was considered. Results: Iran's PHC system has numerous successes in dealing with health system’s control knobs; which largely part of that related to the health network implementation, the role of Behvarz, improvement of health indicators in rural areas and the elimination of urban-rural inequality, but there are some weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the Iranian PHC system as well. Conclusion: By considering socio-economic changes the current structure of PHC system needs to be reformed to coordinate with phenomenon of chronic diseases, accidents and aging. The current information system in PHC does not provide the required information for decision makers and policy makers so it needs to be transformed to the electronic system with unique electronic health file for individuals.

Introduction: Primary care organizations are the entities through which clinical governance is developed at local level. To implement clinical governance in primary care, awareness about principles, prerequisites and barriers of this quality improvement paradigm is necessary. The aim of this study is to pool evidence about implementing clinical governance in primary care organizations. Data sources: The literature search was conducted in July 2012. PubMed, Web of Science, Emerald, Springerlink, and MD Consult were searched using the following MESH keywords; “clinical governance” and “primary care” Study selection: The search was limited to English language journals with no time limitation. Articles that were either quantitative or qualitative on concepts of implementing clinical governance in primary care were eligible for this study. Data extraction: From selected articles, data on principles, prerequisites and barriers of clinical governance in primary health care were extracted and classified in the extraction tables. Results: We classified our findings about principles of clinical governance in primary care in four groups; general principles, principles related to staff, patient and communication. Prerequisites were categorized in eight clusters; same as the seven dimensions of National Health System (NHS) models of clinical governance. Barriers were sorted out in five categories as structure and organizing, cultural, resource, theoretical and logistical. Conclusion: Primary care organizations must provide budget holding, incentivized programs, data feedback, peer review, education, human relations, health information technology (HIT) support, and resources. Key elements include; enrolled populations, an interdisciplinary team approach, HIT interoperability and access between all providers as well as patients, devolution of hospital based services into the community, inter-sectorial integration, blended payments, and a balance of clinical, corporate, and community governance.

Introduction: hospitals performance indicators will help monitoring, evaluation and decision making and therefore must be selected and ranked accurately. The aim of present study is identifying and selecting key hospitals performance indicators. Materials and methods: This is a descriptive and mixed (quantitative-qualitative) study. literature review and expert panel has been done to identify all performance indicators. we prioritize performance indicators by Analytical Hierarchy process (AHP) technique. The data were analyzed by Excel 2007 and Expert Choice11 software’s. Results: hospital performance indicators are classified to three areas as quality- effectiveness, efficiency- financing and accessibility – equity. Indicators like the rate of hospital average length of stay in hospital based on different diagnosis and the mean rate of inpatient waiting time are considered with highest priority performance indicators of public hospitals. Conclusion: Identifying hospital’s key performance indicators provides an opportunity for health stakeholders to identify critical and problematic points with lower costs and time and to the best correction action.

Background: The present study was conducted to scrutinize Public- Private Partnership (PPP) models in public hospitals of different countries based on performance indicators in order to se-lect appropriated models for Iran hospitals.Methods: In this mixed (quantitative-qualitative) study, systematic review and expert panel hasbeen done to identify varied models of PPP as well as performance indicators. In the second stepwe prioritized performance indicator and PPP models based on selected performance indicatorsby Analytical Hierarchy process (AHP) technique. The data were analyzed by Excel 2007 andExpert Choice11 software’s.Results: In quality – effectiveness area, indicators like the rate of hospital infections(100%), hospital accidents prevalence rate (73%), pure rate of hospital mortality (63%), patientsatisfaction percentage (53%), in accessibility equity area indicators such as average inpatientwaiting time (100%) and average outpatient waiting time (74%), and in financial – efficiency area,indicators including average length of stay (100%), bed occupation ratio (99%), specific incometo total cost ratio (97%) have been chosen to be the most key performance indicators. In the prioritizationof the PPP models clinical outsourcing, management, privatization, BOO (build, own,operate) and non-clinical outsourcing models, achieved high priority for various performance indicatorareas.Conclusion: This study had been provided the most common PPP options in the field of public hospitals and had gathered suitable evidences from experts for choosing appropriate PPP option for public hospitals. Effect of private sector presence in public hospital performance, based on which PPP options undertaken, will be different.