Multi-Sectoral Approach

Involving and coordinating across entities whose work touches on primary health care, including governments, communities, civil society, private sector, payers, provider associations, and other nongovernmental organizations. This also means developing processes and relationships that enable stakeholders from all these sectors to work together, including regularly soliciting and integrating input from community and sub-national leaders and ensuring effective stewardship and oversight of the private sector in mixed health systems. A multi-sectoral approach is essential for ensuring social accountability and a Health in All Policies approach.

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Timeliness

The ability of the health system to provide primary care services to patients when they need them, with acceptable and reasonable wait times and at days and times that are convenient to them.

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Safety

The practice of following procedures and guidelines in the delivery of PHC services in order to avoid harm to the people for whom care is intended.

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Efficiency

Efficiency refers to the ability of a health system to attain its desired objective(s) with the available resources, while minimizing waste and maximizing capacities to deliver care to those who need it.

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Effectiveness

Effectiveness measures whether health care and services are driven by evidence, adhere to established standards, and achieve their intended result.

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People-Centeredness

People-centeredness means organizing the health system around the comprehensive needs of people rather than individual diseases.

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First Contact Accessibility

The capacity of a primary care system to serve as the first point of contact, or a patient's entry point to the health system, for most of a person's health needs.

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Coordination

Coordination of care refers to the system's ability to oversee and manage patient care over time and across levels of care to ensure appropriate follow-up, minimize the risk of error, and prevent complications.

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Continuity

Continuity is the degree to which a patient experiences a series of discrete healthcare events as coherent and consistent with their medical needs and personal context.

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Comprehensiveness

The provision of holistic and appropriate care across promotive, preventive, curative, rehabilitative, chronic and palliative service needs.

Indicators
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Evidence of effective stewardship of mixed health systems
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Existence of national, subnational and local strategies for community participation
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Coordination mechanisms with multistakeholder participation and community engagement
Related Concepts

Delivering high-quality primary health care requires many elements of the health system working effectively together. This mapping explores how different concepts with the framework relate to one another.

Upstream elements are those that are required to develop or improve a particular concept. Absence or poor performance of an upstream element is expected to negatively impact the performance of the concept of focus.

Complementary elements are those where improvements or developments in this area will be mutually beneficial to the concept of focus but not required for improvement.

UPSTREAM CONCEPTS
COMPLEMENTARY CONCEPTS
UPSTREAM SUBDOMAINS
Multi-Sectoral Approach
COMPLEMENTARY SUBDOMAINS
Adjustment to Population Health Needs
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Participatory priority setting, a component of Adjustment to Population Health Needs, mechanisms are one method of engaging relevant stakeholders, ensuring social accountability and promoting multi-sectoral approaches in decision making.
Information & Technology
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Accessible and well-designed surveillance, information, and communication systems enable transprency of data and open feedback loops and communication channels between actors. These avenues of data can also be can be used to hold providers and health systems accountable to their population.
Policy and Leadership
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Strong PHC policies and leadership help to establish the systems, laws, and context that build an environment for multisectoral action and citizen-led accountability.
Management of Services
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Mechanisms of performance measurement and management compliments multi-sectoral social accountability by providing a critical data source for holding an array of providers and systems accountable to the populations they serve.
Population Health Management
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Aspects of both local priority setting and community engagement are mutally reinforcing mechanisms to having a multi-sectoral approach. Priority setting at the local level can help identify existing and emerging social concerns to be elevated back to the national level. Similarly, community engagement mechanisms ensure participation of communities in social accountability and planning activities. This includes holding governments and service accountable to the needs of community.
Improvement Strategies

Each PHCPI Improvement Strategy is designed to help decision-makers begin to plan and enact reforms within their own context by providing additional resources and evidence on the topic, as well as practical recommendations for action.

The explainer graphic below presents a quick overview of the concept of Multi-Sectoral Approach. View the full Improvement Strategy on Multi-Sectoral Approach to learn more.

Multi-Sectoral Approach explainer graphic
Potential Funding opportunities

Interested in understanding how this topic intersects with investment opportunities from major funding streams? The Global Frameworks Mapping provides a starting point to help identify and make connections between key PHC topics, relevant funding initiatives, and investment cases.

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Walking the Talk: Reimagining Primary Health Care After COVID-19
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Universal Health Coverage for Sustainable Development (Issue Brief)
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Universal Health Coverage
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UNICEF Health Strategy 2016-2030
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UHC in Africa: A Framework for Action
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The UNICEF Health Systems Strengthening Approach
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Strategy for quality health infrastructure in Africa 2021-2030
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Strategy 2030: Achieving a Prosperous, Inclusive, Resilient, and Sustainable Asia and the Pacific
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Phase V (2021-2025)
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Operational Plan for Health, 2015–2020
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Maternal and Newborn Health Thematic Fund 2018-2022
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Institutional Strategy
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HIV and Universal Health Coverage - A guide for civil society
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High-Performance Health-Financing for Universal Health Coverage: Driving Sustainable, Inclusive Growth in the 21st Century
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Health Sector Framework Document
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Global Financing Facility
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Global Delivery Programs
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Global AIDS Strategy 2021-2026
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Emergency Response
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2020-2022 Strategic Initiatives