The primary purpose of this intensive executive short course, based on the book published by Professor Blanchet Applied Systems Thinking for Health Systems Research is to familiarize participants with a health systems approach to healthcare for communities in low and middle countries affected by humanitarian crises, through practical interactive examples and case studies, and taught by experts with humanitarian expertise in low and middle income countries during or after humanitarian crises.
This is the only course specifically focused on health system assessment in humanitarian crises and built on the latest available evidence.
Course objectives
By the end of the course, participants will be able to:
- Define concepts related to health systems and the six building blocks of the WHO framework.
- Assess the main characteristics of humanitarian health interventions (facility-based, outreach, community-based activities, horizontal versus vertical) and relate to it health system challenges in various areas: financing, human resources, health information system, governance, service delivery, and technology.
- Apply the health system assessment guideline tool in order to translate a local situation analysis into concrete humanitarian interventions.
Programme
- Introduction to health systems, system thinking, the role of governance, and the Health Systems Assessment tool
- Health service delivery and quality
- Health workforce, health technologies, and health information systems
- Health systems financing
- Presentation of the Health System Assessment using a real-life case study
Workload
Around 50 hours of work for the whole course, including:
- 30 hours of face-to-face teaching through a mixture of interactive lectures, case studies, discussions, and group and individual exercises.
- 20 hours of self-study time including reading, writing and group interactions
How to register:
Information on how to enroll can be found at https://humanitarianstudies.ch/application/.