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Chapter 27 - Harnessing the Contribution of the Private Health Care Sector toward Public Health Goals

from Section 2 - Transforming Health Systems: Confronting Challenges, Seizing Opportunities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 December 2022

By
Dominic Montagu ,
A. Venkat Raman  and
Malabika Sarker
Edited by
Sameen Siddiqi ,
Awad Mataria ,
Katherine D. Rouleau  and
Meesha Iqbal
Sameen Siddiqi
Affiliation:
Aga Khan University
Awad Mataria
Affiliation:
World Health Organization, Egypt
Katherine D. Rouleau
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Meesha Iqbal
Affiliation:
UTHealth School of Public Health, Houston
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Summary

Private hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies, and the doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel who staff them provide a large portion of healthcare services in low- and middle-income countries (L&MICs). In some, the private sector delivers much more care than the government. Understanding the scale, capacity, quality, constraints and motivations of private providers and private facilities – whether for-profit, non-profit, formal or informal – is critical to assuring that health services and medicines support and expand the goals of access to quality health care for all. This chapter sets out what is known regarding private care provision, from world-class hospitals to unlicensed and untrained village drug-sellers and summarizes the experience and frameworks being applied around the world to measure, regulate, and assure the efficient and effective provision of private health care as part of mixed-health-systems in L&MICs. In many settings the challenges of private sector governance are complicated by limited data, minimal financial transfers, and weak regulatory systems. Despite this, advances have been made in L&MICs to defining and applying good governance strategies.

Keywords

Private sectorPrivate carePrimary health careHospitalsQualityEquityGovernanceRegulationAccreditationPrivate health care sectorPrivate provisionResponsivenessPublic private engagementL&MIC
Type
Chapter
Information
Making Health Systems Work in Low and Middle Income Countries
Textbook for Public Health Practitioners
 , pp. 421 - 434
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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