Global Programs and Initiatives

Across the wide spectrum of approaches to organizing, financing, and improving national health care systems, researchers and policymakers globally are finding that there are specific issues where innovations and experiences in one country can provide useful insights for improving health or healthcare, particularly at the regional and local level. Rather than creating a separate program for its international/global efforts, AcademyHealth’s global engagement cuts across its existing programs, allowing our members to meet and collaborate with peers who share their professional interests around the world. In addition to specific collaborative projects both at home and abroad, AcademyHealth’s workshops, conferences, and advisory committees often include relevant non-U.S. experts to promote shared learning and address common interests in health services and policy research.

External Stakeholders

Events

December 2016 9th Annual Conference on the Science of Dissemination and Implementation in Health
A forum for discussing the science of dissemination and implementation, the 9th Annual Conference aims to grow the research base by bridging the gap between evidence, practice, and policy in health and medicine. One of the nine tracks for the conference is Global Dissemination & Implementation.

November 2016, Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research Health Systems Global
Health Systems Global organizes a symposium every two years to bring together its members with the full range of players involved in health systems and policy research. Participants will include researchers, policy-makers, funders, implementers, civil society and other stakeholders from relevant national and regional associations and professional organizations. Presentations from AcademyHealth staff will also be featured at the symposium.

Past Events

Reports & Publications

Global Public Health Systems Innovations: A Scan of Promising Practices (2015)

The United States spends more money on health care than any other nation, but the citizens of many other countries live longer and healthier lives than those in the United States. Studies also show that countries that invest more in social and community programs have better health care outcomes and also healthier populations. To explore how other countries’ health improvement efforts could inform similar efforts in the United States, AcademyHealth, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, reviewed and synthesized promising approaches to public health systems innovations in countries that are responding to changing population needs by transforming their public health, health care, and social service systems.

Improving Quality and Efficiency in Health Care through Comparative Effectiveness Analyses: An International Perspective (2014)

The combination of rising health care costs, efforts to achieve universal or near-universal coverage globally, as well as better outcomes drives demand to spend health care funds efficiently and in accordance with each country’s priorities. This paper provides an overview of Health Technology Assessment activities in Europe, Canada, and Australia and examines the new public investments in Comparative Effectiveness Research in the United States. It also seeks to place the new United States federal investments in evidence generation in the context of the rather different investments that are predominantly focused on HTA in other industrialized countries.

Training & Resources

Searching for Effective Innovations I: Reducing Low-Value Care

This was the first in a series of three webinars, produced in partnership with The Commonwealth Fund, focused on high-priority topics in system transformation for which there is substantial international innovation and a learning opportunity for both U.S. and non-U.S. audiences. This webinar featured the latest evidence and experience on reducing low-value care from experts in Australia, Canada, and the United States.

Searching for Effective Innovations II: Long-Term Services and Supports

This webinar explored the current landscape of long-term services and supports (LTSS) in the United States and globally, promising innovations for improving the quality of LTSS, and current challenges in transforming the care provided to be people in need of these services.

Searching for Effective Innovations III: Improving Care for Complex Patients

This webinar focused on improving care for complex patients from experts in the United States and around the world and explored the current landscape of caring for complex patients, highlighted some emerging innovations to improve care, and discussed the challenges that still remain.

Pilots & Programs

Global Health and Health Care Interest Group

AcademyHealth’s Global Health and Health Care Interest Group (IG), the newest IG, is a network to connect researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and trainees interested in health services and systems research (HSR) in a global context. The Group’s mission is to foster the global development, dissemination, and use of HSR to improve the quality, efficiency, effectiveness, and outcomes of care and the health status and quality of life globally. This IG was approved by AcademyHealth's Membership Committee (a sub-committee of the Board of Directors) in June 2015. The IG is in provisional status for the next three years, and will be working to grow its visibility through various events.