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D Grodos

Publications and source records attributed to D Grodos.

5 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1996

Health information systems for leprosy control programmes: a case for quality assessment.

A qualitative study was carried out aimed at checking the level of understanding and the actual use of the indicators recommended in leprosy control programmes by either the World Health Organization or the International Federation of Anti-Leprosy Associations. Two successive questionnaires were sent to 268 leprosy control programme managers. The first one concerned information about the main characteristics of the programme, the information system in operation, and the data regarded as indispensable or useful for programme monitoring. The respondents to the first questionnaire (n = 64) proposed an extraordinarily wide range of indicators, mainly ill-defined. The respondents to the second questionnaire (n = 37) to whom a limited list of precisely defined indicators was submitted did not succeed in reaching a complete agreement on any of these indicators. Although the question of programme monitoring has been dealt with at an international level for years, there is an urgent need for a real agreement of international agencies and managers of leprosy control programmes on the indicators to be used. Programme managers in the field are obviously open to the idea of greater intervention by international organizations to improve data collection and to encourage standardization of computerized information systems.

Communicable Disease Control↗
PubMed1988

[Selective health systems: a trap for health politics in the Third World].

The authors examine the evolution of the PHC approach in historical perspective, present definitions and criteria of what PHC actually means, look upon deviations of conceptual content and practice of PHC and end up with a socio-political as well as a technical critique of the so-called 'selective' PHC. Modern health systems evolved in developing countries modelled on the 'western' biomedical health care systems. Yet even colonial medical services contained also progressive elements, as e.g. the acceptance of the need to de-centralise hospital care to peripheral health posts, or the stress on more rational distribution and utilisation of drugs. The vertical programmes developed under this approach showed clearly their limitations and the conference of Alma-Ata can be looked at as a turning point, where a new model of health care, i.e. PHC, was designed. Though there exists a widespread resistance in industrialised countries against adopting this new model, it was not at all limited only to developing countries. As with every innovative idea, the PHC strategy provoked contradictory views and large differences in interpretation. But, the authors stress, PHC is neither a doctrine, or a theory but the outcome of decades of field-experience of concerned scientists and practitioners. The essential criteria of PHC include: Accessibility: need for improved first contact with the health care system, demanding efforts of decentralising the existing health system without neglecting the quality of care on higher-level medical services. PHC is essentially an action-programme designed around the well-known eight PHC elements, designed to meet effective demand and to rationalise medical offer. The eight elements rather underline the multiplicity of health action required--they are not considered to serve as 'chapters' of PHC policy. PHC is a strategy for re-organising health services. The hospitals should serve the peripheral health centres and not the other way round. At the same time, curative preventive and promotive actions have to be integrated. This necessitates community participation, as the global health problems cannot be solved by the health services alone. PHC in so far re-defines the role of medicine and looks at health in a holistic way. Medicine is being de-mystified and individuals and communities are encouraged to take over responsibility for their own health. This is not at all the consequence of an idealistic view, but derived from field experiences in various circumstances. PHC as a new philosophy of health services delivery therefore, stresses: holistic action for global health issues, equity, participation, and cost/efficiency.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Developing Countries↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[From emergency care to primary health care. Difficulties, pitfalls and stakes].

In the last years thoughts about emergency medical aid have been developed a lot: i) the similarity of emergency health interventions and primary health care (P.H.C.): ii) the necessity of considering emergency health interventions in a long-term developmental perspective have been more and more stressed. Nevertheless important differences between emergency and long-term interventions do exist and it would be useless to deny them by artificially placing emergency health interventions under the aegis of primary health care. If there is any similarity between both of them, it is actually between emergency health interventions and "selective primary health care" (here labelled "selective health interventions"). This similarity lies in the fact that a conceptual as well as operational link is possible between emergency interventions and selective ones. In so far as one's judgement about selective health interventions is rather negative, this similarity appears to be more dangerous than favourable. Furthermore, if the specificity of emergency aid is fully recognized, it could be ineffective to try to implement it as PHC. This paper proposes criteria to distinguish primary health care, selective health interventions and emergency aid.

Emergency Medical Services↗