PPPP Inspiration
On July 31, 2023, In anticipation for an official authorization to co-create an African patient-focused health agenda with the Pan African Parliament of the African Union, Partners For Patients NGO trademarked their value proposition, Patients-Public-Private-Parliamentarians (PPPP) TM. PPPP was also inspired by Professors Winnie Yip and Michael R. Reich Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health “A Guide to Health Reform: Eight Practical Steps August 2023 edition.”
PPPP TM has a primary objective to conduct collaborative research and capacity building to improve equitable and affordable access to good quality healthcare in LMICs, namely Africa.
Dr. Yip and Dr. Reich’s guide is intended to support central and state governments with an ongoing health system strengthening efforts. The key concepts and structure of their Health Reform Guide resonated with PFP.NGO because the Guide also looks to provide practical steps to Improving Performance and Equity.
PPPP keeps in mind, the patients, health policy makers, analysts, and other stakeholders in co-creating and co-shaping health reform efforts. Health reform for PPPP TM is the purposeful use of policy options to effect changes that are intended to improve the performance of the health system, and as a result, help patients access diagnostics, medicines, health literary and clinical trials.
PPPP TM also carried over Dr. Yip and Dr. Reich’s views on What is a “health system”? Their operational definition of a “health system” starts with the premise that the health system translates into, the wellbeing of a population. The “means” that comprise the system is the network of institutions, people, policies, and processes that together work toward that end.
Furthermore, they define “health system performance.” as Performance which encompasses how well the health system achieves six separate, but related. goals.
Three are “intermediate” performance goals:
1) Access: Ensuring health services are available to and used by the population
2) Quality: Delivering health services in ways that increase clinical effectiveness, patient safety, and patient-centeredness
3) Efficiency:
Using inputs to the health system to produce optimal outcomes with limited wastage
The other three are the “final” performance goals of the health system:
4) Health status: Improving the health of the population
5) Financial risk protection: Protecting people from financial ruin due to health care costs
6) Public satisfaction: Increasing how satisfied citizens with the health system
While their framework has been successfully adopted (and adapted) for national and state health system reforms around the world and proved extremely relevant and useful to analysts and policymakers in LMICs—it yet has included what patients’ value, also known as the voices from the people living without access to medicines” in the guide. We have also studied that the people working to improve the performance of health systems in other countries around the world seemingly want to partner, and with PPPP TM, this affords everyone to participate to effect the most exponential growth for the private sector, accelerated policies at national levels and boost economies, all to keep health outcomes and patients at the center of the reforms.
As a collective, we all believe that there is room for improvement in any system, including additional complimentary systematic approach to health reform, therefore, the more partnerships we can forge, the sooner patients can benefit from accessing health when inaccessible.
Therefore, the outcomes of PPPP TM is intended to collect ongoing public consultation that is in the public domain so to share experiences and by receiving suggestions on how to improve partnerships, we are also aiming to support strengthening the performance and equity of health systems around the world through co-creating, co-shaping and collaborating and partnering to help patients access diagnostics, medicines, health literacy and clinical trials.
