Countries and institutions worldwide face the challenge of planning and paying for health care that effectively meets the needs of citizens and employees. While there are many criticisms of existing healthcare models, current literature offers little guidance for individuals who want to carry out the work of redesigning and improving their health system. Using a step-by-step format, Building a High-Value Health System systematically provides analytical tools and functional skills for designing and implementing a health system that fits a population's needs. Active, learner-directed methods teach readers how to assess the needs of a population, analyze the performance of a health system, assess available capacity, and develop system design options that are feasible within this context. The book then describes the strategies through which change agents can implement and sustain these systems in the future. Through global case studies and detailed guidance, Building a High-Value Health System prepares readers to analyze and understand their own health system and take actions to build a better one.

A longstanding debate on health system organization relates to the benefits of integrating programs that emphasize specific interventions into mainstream health systems to increase access and improve health outcomes. This debate has long been characterized by polarization of views and ideologies, with protagonists for and against integration arguing relative merits of each approach. Recently, the debate has been rekindled due to substantial rises in externally-funded programs for priority health, nutrition, and population (HNP) interventions and an increase in international efforts aimed at health system strengthening. However, all too frequently these arguments have not been based on hard evidence. In this book we present findings of a systematic review that explores a broad range of evidence on: (i) the extent and nature of integration of targeted health programs that emphasize specific interventions into critical health systems functions; (ii) how the integration or non-integration of health programs into critical health systems functions in different contexts have influenced program success; and (iii) how contextual factors have affected the extent to which these programs were integrated into critical health systems functions. The findings provide a new synthesis of evidence to inform the debate on health systems and targeted interventions. In practice a rich mix of solutions exists. While the discussion on the relative merits of integrating health interventions will no doubt continue, discussions should move away from the highly-reductionist approach that has polarized this debate.