Health Systems Strengthening and the Role of Innovation

The report Health Systems Strengthening and the Role of Innovation was launched in October at the 14th Globelics conference in Indonesia. Written by Dr Rebecca Hanlin (IKD member and AfricaLics Secretariat at ACTS, Kenya) and Dr Margrethe Holm Andersen (Globelics Secretariat, Aalborg University, Denmark) the open access report is the fourth in a series of thematic reviews from the Globelics Secretariat.

Essentially, the new report argues for a:

• broader definition of health that encompasses issues of wellbeing and livelihoods
• broader definition of innovation that acknowledges the importance of social (organisational, process and systems) innovation
• new analytical framework for addressing how to strengthen health systems that brings in these two wider definitions.

Although neither of the first two is new, the authors' careful consideration of the two together allows them to take a fresh look at how innovation systems thinking may contribute to strengthening health systems in low- and middle-income countries.

In doing so, they are able to present a new framework – the '4Fs' – for analysing and understanding how health systems may or may not lead to effective, inclusive and equitable health outcomes.

Read Health Systems Strengthening: Rethinking the Role of Innovation.