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To examine the importance of appropriate education for health services managers and to identify what might be included in the curriculum for health services management education.

The paper approaches these two questions through an exploration of the distinctive characteristics of health services as a context for management, relating these to a less context‐specific literature on management education. The case for health services management and a description of the ideal curriculum are both developed from this analysis. The analysis is based on the UK but much of it will be applicable to other national settings.

Health services as a context for management practice are made distinctive by the circumstances of working in close proximity to clinical professionals and dominance of evidence‐based practice as a paradigm for the clinical professions. Professionalism is weak as a governing concept for managers and health is often a politicised context for management, especially in publicly owned systems like the UK National Health Service. Management education for health services managers is important for improving systems performance and should offer a broad curriculum that includes the context for practice; research awareness and skills of critical appraisal; a grounding in a range of disciplines and a reflective approach towards general management skills.

Greater value should be attached to health services management education and a systematic approach taken towards curriculum development.

The analysis presented leads to the conclusion that health services management requires a broad curriculum reflecting the rich experience that health services management can offer as an occupation. As the power and influence of managers and managerialism in health care continues to grow, so it becomes all the more important that what is required for their education is questioned and value attached to providing opportunities for that education.

Strengthening management capacity within the health care sector could have a significant impact on population health. However, many training programs in this area are still delivered using a classic lecture-based approach. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and better understand the feasibility of using a problem-based learning (PBL) approach in health services management training programs.

A PBL teaching approach (based on the Maastricht University model) was tested with second-year postgraduate students from the Master in Public Health Management program at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences. Students’ opinions about PBL were investigated using a questionnaire with eight open-ended questions. Thematic content analysis was chosen to reflect the search for patterns across the data.

Respondents stated that the main advantage of PBL was that it was a more interesting and effective way of learning: “It is easier to remember, when you study by yourself and discuss with all peers”. In addition, it was mentioned that PBL initiated a rapid exchange of ideas and sharing of personal experience. Students stressed that PBL was a good tool for developing other skills as well, such as “public speaking, communication, logic thinking”. All students recommended delivering all other courses in the health services management program using PBL methodologies.

Findings from our study suggest that PBL may be an effective approach to teaching health services management. Potential problems in implementation are noted.

Despite enormous progress in health globally, primary healthcare services in many developing countries are facing different challenges. Many studies have documented that decentralisation could be useful in supporting and developing health services closer to citizens. The purpose of this paper is to assess the effect of decentralisation on health services, and to draw general lessons which might help to develop appropriate strategies to improve health services in Nepal.

A mixed method was used, consisting of reviews of current literatures relevant to decentralisation and health performance, engaging with health service inputs‐outputs data between 2001 and 2007, and assessing the range of choices (management, finance and governance) available to local authorities using Bossert's “decision‐space approach”.

Decentralisation in many countries, including Nepal, suggests a new form of service delivery.

Review of the selected studies in triangulation with health services data has revealed that decentralisation in many cases has improved access to, utilisation of, and management of health services. The effects on other performance dimensions such as policy, equity, quality and service effectiveness are poorly investigated topics in the literature. The findings suggest that the successful implementation of decentralisation requires a broader context of institutional capacity building and resource management, and underlines the need for their consideration during implementation processes, and further investigation.

Hospital and health system managers are facing several problems following the introduction of Ghana's national health insurance policy. This study aims to investigate the opinions of health managers about the problems emanating from the national health insurance policy for hospital managers in regard to reimbursement, claims management, service delivery and waiting time.

The study involved key informants from 12 National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) accredited district hospitals, which were purposively selected from five regions in Ghana. Data were collected using in‐depth personal interviews with managers of pharmacy, supply/procurement, accounts and insurance scheme units of the hospitals. Data analysis was guided by the major themes that emerged during the interviews. A framework approach to analysis was used, grouping and incorporating themes and sub‐themes that emerged from the interview data.

The major findings identified by interviewees with regards to problems confronting hospital management were: cash flow delays from the health insurance authority; lack of capacity to procure essential drug and non‐drug consumables; and the inability to take initiatives and carry on effective administrative work. Other problems identified by the interviewee included inadequate logistics and human resources, limited space within the hospitals to cope with the increasing number of service users and “moral hazard” on the part of policy holders.

The NHIS has brought many organizational and service management challenges to hospitals. To overcome these challenges, services under the health insurance authority need to be streamlined to remove cash flow bottlenecks. Also, accredited hospitals need to adopt and use new technology, especially computerization and automation of the health insurance service delivery system. This would enable the authority to cope with the huge management problems confronting hospitals and the national insurance scheme. Above all, appropriate fund management systems would have to be established in the hospitals to reduce moral hazards.

This study aims to investigate the working way of the e-Pulse portal in Türkiye as a sample of a next-generation digital tool for health data management. Accordingly, this study focuses on explaining the structure and key services of the e-Pulse portal in the context of health data management.

This study is a technical paper that will explain how the e-Pulse portal works in Türkiye. Accordingly, the data are based on secondary sources and mostly the official website of the e-Pulse portal. As a sample case, this study investigates the e-Pulse portal from Türkiye. The data are categorized by tables, and some key factors are classified based on review results.

As a result of the review of the e-Pulse portal's sample account, it is seen that the e-Pulse portal provides comprehensive data for personal health data for both individuals and healthcare professionals. By permitting healthcare professionals, users or patients can share their personal health data on specific dates and numbers whenever they need and want. When sharing recorded personal health data, citizens or patients can get more efficient healthcare service on the time.

By giving descriptive evidence and review through the e-Pulse portal, countries with high-populated can see the key e-services and elements to manage health data through digital tools. On the other side, this study has some limitations. This study investigated the e-Pulse portal and its e-services for Türkiye and gave some findings mostly based on subjective deduction. Another digital portal can give different findings for the literature.

Based on the e-Pulse portal case, it is determined that by creating a digital portal with recorded personal up-to-date health data, healthcare services can be ensured more efficiently among high-populated countries in the long term. While population growth and pandemic possibilities such as COVID-19 increase throughout the world, serving more patients with these portals will increase efficiency and service quality, provided that patient information is well protected.

This study reveals key e-services and segments to provide personal health data management by a next-generation digital tool based on the e-Pulse portal. The main contribution of this study is expected to guide other countries when adapting next-generation technology or systems to manage health data in the future.

Positive organizational scholarship in healthcare (POSH) suggests that, to promote widespread improvement within health services, focusing on the good, the excellent, and the brilliant is as important as conventional approaches that focus on the negative, the problems, and the failures. POSH offers different opportunities to learn from and build resilient cultures of safety, innovation, and change. It is not separate from tried and tested approaches to health service improvement – but rather, it approaches this improvement differently. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

POSH, appreciative inquiry (AI) and reflective practice were used to inform an exploratory investigation of what is good, excellent, or brilliant health service management.

The researchers identified new characteristics of good healthcare and what it might take to have brilliant health service management, elucidated and refined POSH, and identified research opportunities that hold potential value for consumers, practitioners, and policymakers.

The secondary data used in this study offered limited contextual information.

This approach is a platform from which to: identify, investigate, and learn about brilliant health service management; and inform theory and practice.

POSH can help to reveal what consumers and practitioners value about health services and how they prefer to engage with these services.

Using POSH, this paper examines what consumers and practitioners value about health services; it also illustrates how brilliance can be theorized into health service management research and practice.

This paper aims to examine the effect of customer relationship management (CRM) on patient satisfaction and patient loyalty, controlling for other socio-demographic characteristics.

The study used a two-stage sampling process and structured questionnaires to collect data from 788 patients from three health facilities (public, quasi-public and private) in Greater Accra, Ghana. The data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics and regression via the partial least squares-based structural equation model.

The results suggest that CRM is significantly positively correlated with patient satisfaction and patient loyalty, with patient satisfaction also significantly correlated with patient loyalty. Additionally, the results suggest that the introduction of education, health facility ownership, health insurance status and gender, neither impact significantly on the relationship between CRM and patient satisfaction/patient loyalty nor influenced patient satisfaction and patient loyalty directly.

The findings of the current paper can have substantial practice implications for operators in the health-care industry in Ghana. CRM components such as service quality, customer service, communication and the use of appropriate technology to deliver service will be fundamental if organizations operating in the health-care ecosystem in Ghana are to be able to compete effectively.

This is one of the very few papers on the relationship between CRM and patient satisfaction and patient loyalty in African health-care literature. Thus, the findings of the paper can constitute a great resource not only to academics but also to practitioners who are looking to be competitive in the health-care market.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the case that health service leadership is more than the sum total of all the health service management activity observed; and to advocate for improved leadership in health services through an examination of top‐down management structures and processes which “crowd out” leadership behaviours.

Application of historical and contemporary contexts to health service management and health service leadership approaches.

The neglect of leadership is discussed and the case is put for a tightly‐crafted position on how leadership should be emphasised and raised to greater prominence. Formulae for conceptualising leadership are presented in order to show the constituent elements underpinning clear descriptions of leadership.

Further research on leadership, and more targeted education for leaders, is needed.

One way to build leadership capacity is to create a sustainable partnership between health service academics and leaders in the field.

Developing formulae for framing leadership is not reductionist per se but specifies with precision the essential elements needed to express health services leadership success.

For health services researchers and health services management educators, chronicling the unfolding of a country's implementation of national health insurance (NHI) is once in a lifetime opportunity. Rarely, do researchers have the opportunity to observe the macro and micro changes associated with turning a country's health care delivery system 180 degrees. Accordingly, we report on the first decade of Taiwan's changing delivery system and selected adaptations of health care management, providers and patients.

The study aims to examine the socio‐economic determinants of maternal health services utilization in Ghana.

Probit and ordered probit models are employed in this study.

The results generally indicate that most women in Ghana undertake the required visits for antenatal services and also take both doses of the tetanus toxoid vaccine as required by World Health Organization. However, the results show low levels of usage in terms of the other maternal health care services (i.e. prenatal care, delivery at a health facility, and postnatal care). There is clearly an urgent need to develop innovative strategies that will help upscale intervention especially for improvement in the use of these services by women in Ghana. The regression results reveal that utilization of maternal health services and intensity of use of antenatal services are influenced by age of mother, type of birth, education of mother, ethnicity, economic status, geographic location, residence, and religious affiliation. Obviously, this suggests that more than medical factors are responsible for the differences in the use of maternal health services by women in Ghana as well as the decision on the number of visits to undertake with respect to antenatal visits.

The findings of this study have important implications for health policy formulation targeted at improving maternal health care service utilization.