Ukraine is facing extraordinary challenges to its health system amidst the Russian invasion, including attacks on Ukrainian medical facilities and infrastructure. To restore and maintain critical health services to Ukraine’s dispersed population, the Ministry of Health is strengthening its capacity to offer medical consultations via telemedicine. This two-page Progress Update describes LHSS technical assistance for the effort and results as of January 2023.

LHSS is supporting local government institutions in Bangladesh’s densely populated Rajshahi and Sylhet Divisions to expand access to primary health services and reduce out-of-pocket expenditures for low-income urban residents. 

Timor-Leste is laser focused on recruiting, deploying, and retaining highly qualified health workers to rebuild the country’s health system workforce. 

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused many doctors to leave the country, compromised patients’ safety when seeking care, and displaced large portions of the population away from their primary health care providers. A strong national telemedicine system will be key to assuring access to health services for Ukrainians, now and in the future. Experiences from other conflict/disaster areas may provide insights, helping Ukraine assess and implement its own telemedicine response.

With a grant from LHSS, the Jamaican health care firm Online Medics is supporting the government’s COVID-19 vaccination effort while gaining valuable new business capacities. “LHSS allowed me to think in the long term – where I wanted my company to go and what I need to do to get it there,” says owner Alex Tracey.

This brief includes a set of suggested competencies developed in collaboration with a diverse group of stakeholders from around the world who identified them as essential for the health workforce.

This technical guidance document provides a summary of principal findings that highlight those complex factors including a literature review, surveys, resource mapping, case studies including key informant interviews, and the development of a theory of change.

This case study examines how Côte d’Ivoire’s DREAMS program incorporates Social Determinants of Health elements into HIV service delivery, as well as the related processes and key lessons learned.

This case study describes and analyzes the Eswatini Nursing Council's efforts to strengthen the competence of nursing graduates to address the population’s health needs by introducing entry-to-practice competencies as the basis for a national licensing examination, and for incorporating Social Determinants of Health into these competencies.

This case study describes and analyzes Patan Academy of Health Science’s efforts and contributes to the knowledge base on how to maximize the positive impact of integrating Social Determinants of Health into the education and training of health workers.

Ukraine prioritizes telemedicine as part of its comprehensive health reform to increase transparency of health service provision, expand access to quality health services, and enhance efficiency in the health sector.

The Vietnam government transitions funding of TB treatment to the SHI fund with support from LHSS. This transition marks a critical milestone, ensuring uninterrupted access to life-saving treatment.

This brief highlights learnings from working with local government leaders of two city corporations and ten district-level municipalities from the Rajshahi and Sylhet divisions in Bangladesh.

Since vaccines became available in 2021, only 26 percent of Jamaicans have been vaccinated – a far cry from the country’s goal of 65 percent by March 2022. Religious communities were among the victims of the misinformation causing vaccine hesitancy, with many of the country’s Christians believing the vaccines represented “the mark of the beast.” In response, the government called on church leaders to play a more prominent role in the country’s vaccination effort.

This brief explores ways in which digital tools and systems can be used successfully and responsibly to advance SBC interventions in support of health system strengthening, and provides recommendations for future programming and areas of research.