As the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative (PHCPI) concludes, the Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage (JLN) joins in expressions of gratitude and emphasizes the value of the JLN-PHCPI partnership. The JLN commits to keep the momentum strong, to continuously and collectively push to improve PHC as countries advance towards UHC.

Countries pursuing universal health coverage (UHC) are increasingly active in seeking to leverage private healthcare providers to enhance their reforms. Many are contracting private providers to deliver subsidized care and/or corporatizing their public facilities in order to improve performance, tackle inefficiencies and stimulate much-needed new investment across the delivery systems. As most soon discover, this requires a very different set of skills to those traditionally developed among public healthcare officials, and a range of technical and cultural gaps become evident.

Ghana has been an active member of the Person-Centered Integrated Care (PCIC) collaborative of JLN–participating in all meetings, as well as hosting the second meeting in Ghana in March 2018 when the key components of the collaborative’s definition of empanelment were identified.
Together, members of the collaborative authored an Empanelment Summary and an Empanelment Assessment Tool. We in Ghana believe that key lessons in improving this tool was made stronger due to the lessons learnt from the Ghanaian health system, particularly the Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) component.