In December 2021, the Criteria Network led a workshop that brought together renowned regional and international experts with the aim of discussing strategies to mitigate the effect of the current fiscal austerity that region is going through at this moment by adopting measures such as explicit priority setting, by resorting to a better regulation, negotiation and procurement of medicine prices and by implementing a series of strategies to improve the efficiency of hospital spending which are three areas where there is an important margin to obtain more health with the available resources. Check the details of the event here and watch the presentations of our guest speakers in this section.

Overview of the current situation

Main challenges faced by LAC countries that add pressure to health spending: the case of Ecuador

Aquiles Rodrigo Henríquez

Coordinator of Strategic Management in Health. Ministry of Public Health of Ecuador

This session looks at some of the difficult resource allocation challenges and decisions faced by middle-income countries, such as Ecuador, in the face of different drivers of health spending growth. It also presents some public policy alternatives for mitigating their effects.

Economic and fiscal outlook and implications of the pandemic for governments and health spending in LAC

Christoph Kurowski

Global leader in health financing. World Bank.

Different macroeconomic projections paint a mixed picture regarding the ability of LAC countries to return to pre-pandemic rates of per capita public health spending. This session discusses the health implications of the current fiscal scenario.

Mitigating austerity: lessons learned from previous fiscal crises

Amanda Glassman

Executive Vice President. Center for Global Development

This presentation provides an overview of the strategies that countries have used in other fiscal and economic crises to improve the efficiency of health care spending and highlights lessons and challenges that apply for the current scenario.

Low-hanging fruits to improve health spending efficiency

Improving hospital efficiency

Jerry La Forgia

 

Technical director. Global Access

Hospitals are known to be major sources of inefficiency in the health sector. This session reviews some of the factors of inefficiency, as well as some of the strategies that can be adopted to improve value for money in this area.

Low hanging fruits in explicit priority setting. The experience of Thailand

Mannit Sittimart

Project Associate. HITAP Thailand

This presentation discusses key aspects of Thailand's Health Interventions and Technology Assessment Program (HiTAP). These include the areas in which HTA is applied, the pillars of independence, transparency and good governance, and examples of South-South cooperation initiatives in this field.

"Low hanging fruit" or "Cinderella": addressing inefficiencies in the pharmaceutical market

Veronika Wirtz

Global Health Teacher. boston university

This session reviews some of the strategies that can be implemented in pharmaceutical markets to improve resource allocation and produce better health outcomes with the existing resources.

Lessons from the ground

Lessons from the ground: panel discussion with policy makers and experts from Latin America and the Caribbean

Moderated By: Marcella Distrutti

Health Specialist. IDB Social Protection and Health Division

This panel translates the theoretical discussion into practice, through the intervention of public policy makers and experts from LAC. Leonardo Arregocés from the Ministry of Health in Colombia, Valentín Díaz García from the CENABAST of Chile, Vanessa Teich from the Albert Einstein Hospital in Brazil, and Yesenia Díaz from SISALRIL in the Dominican Republic, share their experiences and challenges in implementing strategies to improve health spending in different sectors and components of health systems.

You want to access more material on explicit prioritization in health, visit this and other webinars here: https://criteria.iadb.org/en/webinars