In light of current gaps in public stewardship of private providers in many developing countries (see findings from R4D’s 2008 effort on the Role of the Private Sector in Health Systems), the Brookings Institution’s Engelberg Center for US Health Reform, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, partnered with the Results for Development Institute (R4D) to explore lessons that can be drawn from the US health system–with its complex mix of public and private actors—and applied to developing countries that also have complex mixed public/private health systems. In particular, the project explored the role of professional associations, policy consultation and analysis mechanisms, health information collection, and accreditation. The joint project team considered how the lessons from this analysis of the US public/private health system interaction might inform the development of improved stewardship mechanisms in the developing world, with an emphasis on what works and does not work well in the United States.
In addition to conducting the analysis, the Engelberg Center for Health Reform and the Results for Development Institute jointly hosted a workshop on the stewardship of mixed health systems.
