The Health Evidence Network (HEN) is an information service for public health decision-makers in the
WHO European Region, in action since 2003 and initiated and coordinated by the WHO Regional Office for
Europe under the umbrella of the WHO European Health Information Initiative (a multipartner network
c...
Health systems are moving away from traditional
primary care (e.g., by increasingly shifting to group
practice and interprofessional teams rather than solo
practice primary-care providers), which is often siloed
and results in barriers to timely access to care.(1) The
Ministry of Health of British Columb...
Nurses have a long tradition of informally working in
expanded roles in rural and remote communities in
Canada (e.g., outpost nurses).(1; 2) The formalization of
the nurse practitioner role in Canada began in the mid1960s as a response to four interrelated factors: 1)
introduction of publicly funded heal...
Momentum for patient and caregiver engagement in
health and social care is growing across Ontario.(1) This
is evidenced by a number of recently released strategies
and frameworks highlighting the importance of
involving Ontarians in their own care as informed
consumers of health and social services. One ...
Ontario has both a health system and a research system that
are increasingly putting patients and rapid learning and
improvement at their centre. For the health system, a recent
notable example of such efforts was the Patients First Act
2016 which, among other things, mandated the creation of
Patient and...
Health literacy is gaining increasing attention as a means of promoting health. This evidence synthesis describes health literacy policies in the WHO European Region: their distribution, organizational levels, antecedents, actors, activities and outcomes, along with the factors influencing their effectiv...
Community resilience is the ability of communities and groups to adapt and thrive in response to external stressors. Building resilient communities as a strategy for population health requires assessment of personal and collective capacities alongside vulnerabilities. This report examines what quantitati...
The World Health Assembly in 2005 urged Member States to establish or strengthen knowledge transfer mechanisms to support evidence-informed health policies and health care delivery. The European Health Information Initiative was set up to strengthen the use of evidence, information and research for polic...
Health systems performance assessment (HSPA) varies across the WHO European Region. This review summarizes HSPA domains and indicators used by Member States in their HSPA or health system-related reports. Thirty Member States published in the English language and from their latest documents, 1485 distinc...
Over the last two decades, major gains have been made in global health: life expectancy has increased dramatically; polio eradication is tantalizingly within reach; six million more children survived until their fifth birthday; malaria deaths halved, while more than 20 million people living with HIV gain...
