Factors Affecting Quality of Care in Maternal and Child Health in Timor-Leste: A Scoping Review

Timor-Leste faces many challenges implementing quality maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) services due to resource constraints and socio-cultural factors that disproportionately affect the health of women and children. A scoping review was conducted to map the quality of MNCH services against WHO quality standards on: 1. Provision of care, 2. Experiences of care, and 3. Cross-cutting standards. The literature search identified 1058 citations, from which 28 full-text articles met the inclusion criteria. The findings highlight health workers' limited capacity to provide quality services and referrals. The major reasons for this are: a lack of essential supplies, poor infrastructure and transport, limited opportunities for ongoing learning, and gaps in health information systems. Provision of care standards and cross-cutting standards require attention at a broad systems level. Findings related to experiences of care highlight the importance of effective communication, respect, and emotional support, particularly for vulnerable women and children who have difficulty accessing services, and for those who have experienced violence. These experience-related standards could be addressed at an individual health worker and health service level, as well as at a systems level. This review provides direction to focus quality-improvement initiatives within local health facilities, as well as at municipal and national level

A Comprehensive Survey on Data Utility and Privacy: Taking Indian Healthcare System as a Potential Case Study

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and editors who have been involved in examining this manuscript.Background: According to the renowned and Oscar award-winning American actor and film director Marlon Brando, “privacy is not something that I am merely entitled to, it is an absolute prerequisite.” Privacy threats and data breaches occur daily, and countries are mitigating the consequences caused by privacy and data breaches. The Indian healthcare industry is one of the largest and rapidly developing industry. Overall, healthcare management is changing from disease-centric into patient-centric systems. Healthcare data analysis also plays a crucial role in healthcare management, and the privacy of patient records must receive equal attention. Purpose: This paper mainly presents the utility and privacy factors of the Indian healthcare data and discusses the utility aspect and privacy problems concerning Indian healthcare systems. It defines policies that reform Indian healthcare systems. The case study of the NITI Aayog report is presented to explain how reformation occurs in Indian healthcare systems. Findings: It is found that there have been numerous research studies conducted on Indian healthcare data across all dimensions; however, privacy problems in healthcare, specifically in India, are caused by prevalent complacency, culture, politics, budget limitations, large population, and existing infrastructures. This paper reviews the Indian healthcare system and the applications that drive it. Additionally, the paper also maps that how privacy issues are happening in every healthcare sector in India. Originality/Value: To understand these factors and gain insights, understanding Indian healthcare systems first is crucial. To the best of our knowledge, we found no recent papers that thoroughly reviewed the Indian healthcare system and its privacy issues. The paper is original in terms of its overview of the healthcare system and privacy issues. Social Implications: Privacy has been the most ignored part of the Indian healthcare system. With India being a country with a population of 130 billion, much healthcare data are generated every day. The chances of data breaches and other privacy violations on such sensitive data cannot be avoided as they cause severe concerns for individuals. This paper segregates the healthcare system’s advances and lists the privacy that needs to be addressed first

Transitioning to Good Health and Well-Being

Transitioning to Good Health and Well-Being addresses critical issues of health in the context of sustainability, which need to be tackled in order to achieve Agenda 2030. Acknowledging the dramatic improvements that have been made in the past decades with regards to health, we also face disparities that remain amongst and within countries. While life expectancy has more than doubled, we are, at the same time, confronted with the challenges that come along with population growth alongside environmental change, migration, ageing, and economic disparities. In its 2018 progress report concerning SDG 3, the UN stated that, while the quality of global health is increasing, “people are still suffering needlessly from preventable diseases”, both infectious and non-communicable, "and too many are dying prematurely". Although we are on the verge of eradicating, poliomyelitis, which disables 350’000 children each year, we continue to have few answers for outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases. Making progress against these outbreaks with strong health systems, particularly in neglected or inaccessible regions, is deeply connected to further issues targeted by the UN SDGs such as (restricted) access to clean water, healthy food, or continuing political instabilities as well as gender inequalities. Transitioning to Good Health and Well-Being, therefore, offers a vessel for a productive reflection and conversation on the meaning of and possibilities for global health, giving voice to a range of scholars, strategists and practitioners. Transitioning to Good Health and Well-Being is part of MDPI's new Open Access book series Transitioning to Sustainability. With this series, MDPI pursues environmentally and socially relevant research which contributes to efforts toward a sustainable world. Transitioning to Sustainability aims to add to the conversation about regional and global sustainable development according to the 17 SDGs. The book series is intended to reach beyond disciplinary, even academic boundaries

Transitioning to Good Health and Well-Being

At this purpose characterization, production, effectiveness, safety and use of natural fibers, block copolymeric nanoparticles and food packaging will be briefly described and discussed

Ending Tuberculosis

This report examines the challenges facing ending tuberculosis (TB). TB is preventable and curable, and yet it continues to affect over 10 million people a year and is the world’s deadliest infectious disease. TB affects those most vulnerable and threatens livelihoods, perpetuating poverty and undermining economic development. The spread of drug-resistant TB, against which we are ill-equipped to respond to, threatens global health security. Current global efforts in tackling TB means that the 2015 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Three to end TB by 2030 will not be met for over a century. Optimising use and implementation of current and new tools emerging from the pipeline in the provision of equitable TB care and prevention within the broader context of universal health coverage (UHC) and social protection can be done now to accelerate progress. New tools will need to be available by 2025 to accelerate progress further but investment needs to happen now to ensure a vaccine, point-of-care diagnostic and new drugs are ready. Partnerships and reaching out to all key populations vulnerable to TB will help to find and treat the four million people with TB missed by the health system each year. The United Nations General Assembly High Level Meeting (UN HLM) on TB on 26 September 2018 offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the global TB community led by heads of state and government to prioritise, invest, partner and reach out to all to cure and prevent TB contributing to the good health and well-being of people, eliminating poverty and enabling work and economic growth. Substantial investment will not only deliver a world free of TB but will also strengthen health systems to respond to diseases beyond TB, help move towards UHC, widen social protection and address social and economic determinants of poverty

Transitioning to Good Health and Well-Being

Transitioning to Good Health and Well-Being addresses critical issues of health in the context of sustainability, which need to be tackled in order to achieve Agenda 2030. Acknowledging the dramatic improvements that have been made in the past decades with regards to health, we also face disparities that remain amongst and within countries. While life expectancy has more than doubled, we are, at the same time, confronted with the challenges that come along with population growth alongside environmental change, migration, ageing, and economic disparities. In its 2018 progress report concerning SDG 3, the UN stated that, while the quality of global health is increasing, “people are still suffering needlessly from preventable diseases”, both infectious and non-communicable, "and too many are dying prematurely". Although we are on the verge of eradicating, poliomyelitis, which disables 350’000 children each year, we continue to have few answers for outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases. Making progress against these outbreaks with strong health systems, particularly in neglected or inaccessible regions, is deeply connected to further issues targeted by the UN SDGs such as (restricted) access to clean water, healthy food, or continuing political instabilities as well as gender inequalities. Transitioning to Good Health and Well-Being, therefore, offers a vessel for a productive reflection and conversation on the meaning of and possibilities for global health, giving voice to a range of scholars, strategists and practitioners. Transitioning to Good Health and Well-Being is part of MDPI's new Open Access book series Transitioning to Sustainability. With this series, MDPI pursues environmentally and socially relevant research which contributes to efforts toward a sustainable world. Transitioning to Sustainability aims to add to the conversation about regional and global sustainable development according to the 17 SDGs. The book series is intended to reach beyond disciplinary, even academic boundaries