A review of Vietnam's healthcare reform through the Direction of Healthcare Activities (DOHA)
Takashima, Kyoko, Wada, Koji, Tra, Ton Thanh, and Smith, Derek R. (2017) A review of Vietnam's healthcare reform through the Direction of Healthcare Activities (DOHA). Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine, 22. 74.
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Abstract
Objective: This article provides a comprehensive review of the healthcare reform process driven by the Vietnamese Ministry of Health's Direction of Healthcare Activities (DOHA) scheme.
Methods: We reviewed policy documents relating to DOHA, along with historical literature and background information describing its formation.
Results: DOHA (Chi aao tuyen in Vietnamese) literally means guidance line or level in English. It requires healthcare facilities at higher government administration levels to support those at lower levels (the four levels being central, provincial, district, and commune), to help lower level hospitals to provide medical services for local communities in primary care settings and reduce the number of patients in higher level (central and provincial) hospitals. Since the 1990s, there have been too many patients attending higher level hospitals, and DOHA has therefore focused on technical skills transfer training to help alleviate this situation. Designated core central hospitals now provide technical skills transfer to provincial hospitals. Professional technical lists for each level of health facility have enabled strong commitment and proactive ownership of the process of training management in both higher and lower level hospitals.
Conclusion: The DOHA scheme has accelerated the necessary up-skilling of healthcare at lower level public hospitals across Vietnam. These reforms are highly relevant for other countries with limited healthcare resources.
| Item ID: | 51677 |
|---|---|
| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1347-4715 |
| Keywords: | Direction of Healthcare Activities (DOHA), health system, quality, referral, Vietnam |
| Additional Information: | This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
| Funders: | National Center for Global Health and Medicine |
| Date Deposited: | 29 Nov 2017 07:36 |
| FoR Codes: | 42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4203 Health services and systems > 420305 Health and community services @ 100% |
| SEO Codes: | 92 HEALTH > 9202 Health and Support Services > 920207 Health Policy Evaluation @ 100% |
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