Is PhilHealth's Sponsored Program Reaching the Poorest of the Poor?

One of the key programs of the PhilHealth is its Sponsored Program for the less privileged wherein health insurance coverage is open to qualified indigents belonging to the lowest 25 percent of the Philippine population. The health insurance covers hospitalization and special packages for facility-based deliveries and newborn screening as well as treatment of illnesses such as tuberculosis, SARS, avian flu, and A (H1N1). A special benefit package under the Sponsored Program is the Outpatient Benefit (OPB) package. This package consists of preventive services, diagnostic services, and laboratory services. With this package, the health concerns of the indigent should more or less be addressed. But what is worrisome are some of the concerns raised by some bonafide members of PhilHealth’s Sponsored Program. In focus group discussions, respondent members lamented that they do not actually feel the supposed benefits of the OPB package. Because of these, many indigents get discouraged from enrolling in the program.Philippines, social health insurance, Philippine Health Corporation (PhilHealth), PhilHealth Sponsored Program

Magna Carta of Public Health Workers: Does it really Fulfill its Intent?

The Magna Carta of Public Health Workers (RA 7305) was enacted to ensure that health workers are properly compensated, thereby helping to promote better delivery of quality health care service. This Note, however, poses some questions after examining data and information regarding payment and funding of the Magna Carta benefits. Does the law really fulfill its original intent? Or does it cause more damage than good?health sector, hospitals, health service delivery, Philippines, health, health funds, disaster risk management, health workers

How Are DOH Hospitals Funded?

How are government hospitals funded? What are the sources of their funds and how are these allocated to them? This Note takes a deeper look at this and offers some insights and suggestions in addressing certain issues attendant to it.health sector, health care reform, health management, Philippines, health, health funds, government hospitals

New Ideas to Help the Aquino Administration Achieve its Health Agenda

One of the inaugural commitments made by the Philippines` new administration is the provision of quality and affordable health care for each and every Filipino. To achieve this, a strategic health agenda is needed. This Policy Note offers a few new ideas that may help the administration achieve its health agenda.health sector, health care, health insurance, hospitals, health care financing, Philippines, health

From Business model to Business model portfolio in the european biopharmaceutical industry

At the crossroad of firm's core competencies and of the anticipations of consumers' needs, the business model approach complements corporate and business strategy approaches. Firms combine several business models simultaneously to deliver value to different markets, building a portfolio of business model. For managers, business model and business model portfolio are particularly useful to address customer's needs and organisational capabilities of the firm. They also emphasise how the initial core competency of the firm can be extended or redeployed to increase the rent. Business model portfolio describes the firm's strategy to balance time-to-market, revenue stream, risk and interdependencies. It conceptualises firm diversification within the same industry to generate and capture rents. They finally describe two generic dimensions: core competence extension to enlarge the market and to address additional customers and core competence redeployment to serve similar market with the same core competence.Biopharmaceutical; portfolio; corporate strategy; business strategy; core competence; coherence; value chain

Assessing LGUs' Health Service Delivery Performance: the Cases of Agusan del Sur and Dumaguete City

With the devolution of health service delivery from the Department of Health to local government units (LGUs) as mandated in the 1991 Local Government Code, how have the LGUs performed in their new task? And how have the local constituents responded to the new set-up? Read more on these...local government unit, health facilities, health service delivery, local government code, local service delivery

Focus on Barangay Economic Development

Because the barangay is considered to be the local government unit closest to the people in terms of access and proximity, its role in local service delivery cannot be undermined. Hence, it is important for a barangay to learn how to maximize and use its limited funds effectively and efficiently so that such can redound to economic gains that would allow the barangay to support the generation and delivery of local services to its constituents. How and where can the barangay use its limited resources? Read on...local government unit, local government unit expenditures, local governance, decentralization and service delivery, institutions, local development, local service delivery

From Business model to Business model portfolio in the european biopharmaceutical industry

International audienceAt the crossroad of firm's core competencies and of the anticipations of consumers' needs, the business model approach complements corporate and business strategy approaches. Firms combine several business models simultaneously to deliver value to different markets, building a portfolio of business model. For managers, business model and business model portfolio are particularly useful to address customer's needs and organisational capabilities of the firm. They also emphasise how the initial core competency of the firm can be extended or redeployed to increase the rent. Business model portfolio describes the firm's strategy to balance time-to-market, revenue stream, risk and interdependencies. It conceptualises firm diversification within the same industry to generate and capture rents. They finally describe two generic dimensions: core competence extension to enlarge the market and to address additional customers and core competence redeployment to serve similar market with the same core competence

Étude des pertes au ruissellement sur surfaces imperméables en milieu urbain.

L'étude de la réponse hydrologique de deux bassins versants de l'agglomération de Bordeaux en France a montré que les pertes initiales au ruissellement sur les surfaces imperméables étaient responsables des écarts entre le volume ruisselé et le volume prévu proportionnel à la lame d'eau tombée sur un bassin versant. Les pertes initiales, qui n'excèdent pas 2 à 3 mm, dépendent essentiellement de l'état de saturation des surfaces imperméables au début de la pluie. Cet état initial des surfaces imperméables dépend lui-même des antécédents pluvieux, notamment des conditions hydrologiques et météorologiques depuis la dernière pluie qui précède l'événement pluvieux considéré. Afin d'estimer quantitativement les pertes au ruissellement au cours d'une pluie, un modèle d'évaporation nommé EVA a été développé. Les données météorologiques sont utilisées afin d'évaluer, à partir d'un bilan énergétique simplifié entre l'eau et l'air, la lame d'eau évaporée des surfaces imperméables entre deux pluies successives. Après une pluie, il faut de un à trois jours selon la saison pour que l'eau stockée dans les dépressions de surface soit totalement évaporée, sur les bassins testés.Le modèle a été testé avec les mesures disponibles sur deux bassins versants urbains de la région bordelaise dont la surface totale n'excède pas 6 hectares. Quantitativement, on montre qu'il est possible de prédire les pertes au ruissellement avec une précision de 0,5 mm dans 65 % des cas étudiés. Les 35% d'épisodes où l'on se heurte à des difficultés sont des séquences de faibles épisodes pluvieux séparés par quelques heures et n'excédant pas 3,0 mm. La modélisation du remplissage partiel des dépressions de surface des terrains imperméables est alors trop sommaire.The subject of this article is runoff losses in an urban environment, specifically initial losses through impermeable surface depressions directly connected to the network. For this purpose the hydrological behavior of two urban watersheds (Batany and Trianon) of about 5 hectares each, in the Bordeaux region of France, have been studied to observe that the fluctuations around the "Rainfall Amount versus Runoff Volume" law essentially derive from initial runoff losses which differ from one rainfall event to another. The fluctuations around this law make it impossible to precisely estimate runoff volume based on rainfall. Improved knowledge of initial losses would result in better estimation of the runoff volume of more regular (monthly or bi-monthly) rainfall events, which must increasingly be treated at water treatment plants in order to be able to better control the overflows. If the involvement of permeable surfaces is assumed to be negligible, we can postulate that the initial losses from a given rainfall event are directly linked to the water stored on the impervious surfaces connected to the network. The moisture content prior to the event is dependent upon the occurrence of a previous rainfall event and on the meteorological conditions prevailing between the previous rainfall event and the one under study.A model, called the EVA model, has been developed with the objective of predicting runoff losses corresponding to a rainfall event as a function of the previously prevailing watershed moisture conditions. The model evaluates the amount of evaporation from the water contained in the surface depressions between two successive rainfall events, called the initial rainfall event and the final rainfall event. The initial rainfall event represents the previous rainfall event, and the final rainfall event is the event for which the losses are to be estimated. The application of the model requires a very good record of the small rainfall events which have occurred during the modelling periods, and which are called the intermediate rainfall events. In practice, this constraint implies the need to monitor the dispersed rainfall events which, even if they cause only very light runoff, nonetheless contribute to a partial filling of the surface depressions present on the impervious terrain.The equations used in the model are those which correspond to the energy balance between air and water using the net radiation, the latent, sensible and storage heat (the soil heat flux is considered negligible). The EVA model uses meteorological data such as the air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and solar radiation. The model evaluates two variables: water depth and water temperature. Since water depth after evaporation is known, the losses of a rainfall event can be estimated by subtracting the total volume of water which has evaporated during the dry period from a maximum value of the losses. The modeled losses are then compared with the measured losses. In order to simplify the resolution of the problem, the total water volume contained in the thousands of surface depressions present in the watershed is considered to be contained in a single depression called a representative depression. This representative depression can take different forms and have different initial heights, which have been tested while the work was in progress.The model is found to be coherent in terms of the variations in water depth in the surface depressions. The total water volume contained in the surface depressions takes from 1 to 3 days to evaporate depending on the season. The variation in water depth is caused by differences in evaporation rates occurring during the months close to the summer solstice and during the cooler months.The first version of the model was created in 1992 and tested on two watersheds of about 250 hectares each in the Paris area. The model was modified and the new results were compared with the measurements obtained in two watersheds in the city of Bordeaux. The performance of the model was evaluated for 17 rainfall events, of which 10 were in the Batany watershed and 7 in the Trianon basin. The model accurately predicts the losses corresponding to a rainfall event within 0.5 mm, in two cases out of three. The problem encountered in the remaining one-third of the cases was essentially that it is difficult to account for runoff during intermediate rainfall events because of very low flow rates and small rainfall depth measurements.Experimental equipment installed in two watersheds in Bordeaux has made it possible to obtain relatively precise pluviometric and discharge measurements. However, there is uncertainty concerning these measurements, which is inherent in this field, when it comes to validating a model like EVA because such a model is used for regular rainfall events for which the initial losses directly influence the runoff volume.However the a priori knowledge of initial runoff losses should enable better use of a model which, for example, assumes that the runoff coefficient increases progressively at the beginning of the rainfall event. The validation of such a model was attempted while the work was under way, but ran into the difficulty of selecting a set of rainfall events characterized by constant rainfall intensity.The development of a model like EVA requires rainfall and flow measurements which are free of uncertainties and accessible within experimental watersheds which are perfectly monitored and where the measurement uncertainties are the same for all observable measurement ranges (in particular for the discharge measurements). These requirements currently constitute a technical barrier in terms of measurement that will be difficult to surmount. However, the work carried out in this research hints at the possible improvement of the classical hydrological models used in urban hydrology, particularly those used for forecasting the runoff volumes of regular rainfall events