Prelims

Half Title Page

Resilient Health Systems

Series Title Page

European Health Management in Transition

Series Editors:

Federico Lega, Full Professor of Health Management and Policy, Director of the Research and Executive Education Center in Health Administration, University of Milan

Usman Khan, Visiting Professor, KU Leuven

Healthcare is currently undergoing an unprecedented period of change, which is presenting a challenge to the fundamental tenants of health management and policy established over the last decades. The differentiated nature of the change agenda and the pace of change has been such that there has been limited space or time to provide a structured or comprehensive response, or to consider at a strategic level how health management teaching and practice should evolve and develop. This then is the focus for the European Health Management in Transition series, published in alliance with the European Health Management Association (EHMA).

Books in the series investigate how changes to the health and social care environment are leading to innovative and different practices in health management, health services delivery design, roles and professions, architecture and governance of health systems, patients' engagement and all other paradigmatic shifts taking place in the health context.

The books provide a roadmap for managers, educators, researchers and policy makers to better understand this rapidly developing environment.

Books in the Series:

Federico Lega and Usman Khan: Health Management 2.0: Meeting the Challenge of 21st Century Health

Axel Kaehne and Henk Nies (eds): How to Deliver Integrated Care: A Guidebook for Managers

Title Page

Resilient Health Systems

What We Know; What We Should Do

By

Federico Lega

Milan University, Italy

And

Giada Carola Castellini

Bocconi University, Italy

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2022

Copyright © 2022 Federico Lega and Giada Carola Castellini. Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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Contact: permissions@emeraldinsight.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters' suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-80262-276-8 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-80262-273-7 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-80262-275-1 (Epub)

List of Figures and Tables

About the Authors

Federico Lega, PhD, is Full Professor of Health Policy, Management and Economics at Milan University, Director of the Research Center in Health Administration (HEAD) and leads the Health and Life Science area at Milan University School of Management. He holds positions of Adjunct Professor at Gulf Medical University Health Management College, UAE, and at the Department of Health Services Administration of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA. His research interests focus on health leadership, change management and innovation in health services delivery, strategy-making and competitive positioning of pharma and medical technology industries.

He's the past President and chair of the scientific advisory committee of EHMA. Since 2015 he has been the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Health Services Management Research and Associate Editor of BMC HSR and MCRR. He has published more than 10 books and over 150 journal articles.

Giada Carola Castellini holds a Master’s Degree in International Development with Global Health concentration from Sciences Po University (Paris) and a Master’s Degree in Economics and Management of Government and International Organizations from Bocconi University (Milan) with particular focus on health policy and management. During her academic career her research interest concentrated on health systems management and governance. She is currently working for the corporate development office at Humanitas Gavazzeni Hospital in Bergamo.

Foreword

Why a book on resilient health systems?

Ça va sans dire.

WHO leaders ¹ have noted: ‘COVID-19 has “unmasked” critical health system gaps and deficiencies. Health workforce shortages, broken supply chains, fragmented services and silo information systems are a few of the problems that hindered the response in the early days… This indicates that there is a need to rethink how public health and health care services should be organized and placed at the core of societal services, and to build people-centred health systems that are resilient to emergencies, through actions that include the following: 1. strengthening hospital capacities to handle significant influxes of patients associated with a largescale pandemic (ensuring sufficient capacity in terms of intensive care units and associated medical equipment, a trained health workforce and infection prevention and control measures); 2. providing high-quality protective equipment to frontline health workers and planning surge capacity in case of rapidly increasing demand for hospitalizations, but also for other core response functions, such as contact tracing; 3. equipping diagnostic laboratories and training laboratory personnel; 4. improving surveillance, data collection and case investigation; 5. strengthening procurement systems, supply chains, operational support and logistics; 6. embedding strong risk communication and community engagement in governance; 7. accelerating research and development of tests, vaccines and therapeutics’.

Direction and road seem clear. The resources to implement the envisioned changes are coming through the recovery funds.

Yet, clouds are darkening the horizon.

Recovery plans developed and adopted by health systems are mostly focused on strengthening the organization and supply of community services. Fine. Better, great! More capacity (and hopefully also more capability).

But, adding ‘people and things’ does not make a health system necessarily more resilient.

The word itself, after being overused in the first months of the pandemic, has almost disappeared in the debate and conversation on recovery plan implementation. Even worse, not just the word has disappeared, but it seems that any roadmap and path necessary to strengthen the resilience of health systems has vanished.

This is why this book on resilient health systems is important, as it shows us how to make health systems more resilient.

Enjoy reading!

Milan, January 2022.

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