Is PhilHealth's Sponsored Program Reaching the Poorest of the Poor?

One of the key programs of the PhilHealth is its Sponsored Program for the less privileged wherein health insurance coverage is open to qualified indigents belonging to the lowest 25 percent of the Philippine population. The health insurance covers hospitalization and special packages for facility-based deliveries and newborn screening as well as treatment of illnesses such as tuberculosis, SARS, avian flu, and A (H1N1). A special benefit package under the Sponsored Program is the Outpatient Benefit (OPB) package. This package consists of preventive services, diagnostic services, and laboratory services. With this package, the health concerns of the indigent should more or less be addressed. But what is worrisome are some of the concerns raised by some bonafide members of PhilHealth’s Sponsored Program. In focus group discussions, respondent members lamented that they do not actually feel the supposed benefits of the OPB package. Because of these, many indigents get discouraged from enrolling in the program.Philippines, social health insurance, Philippine Health Corporation (PhilHealth), PhilHealth Sponsored Program

New Ideas to Help the Aquino Administration Achieve its Health Agenda

One of the inaugural commitments made by the Philippines` new administration is the provision of quality and affordable health care for each and every Filipino. To achieve this, a strategic health agenda is needed. This Policy Note offers a few new ideas that may help the administration achieve its health agenda.health sector, health care, health insurance, hospitals, health care financing, Philippines, health

A Simulation Tool for tccp Programs

The Timed Concurrent Constraint Language tccp is a declarative synchronous concurrent language, particularly suitable for modelling reactive systems. In tccp, agents communicate and synchronise through a global constraint store. It supports a notion of discrete time that allows all non-blocked agents to proceed with their execution simultaneously. In this paper, we present a modular architecture for the simulation of tccp programs. The tool comprises three main components. First, a set of basic abstract instructions able to model the tccp agent behaviour, the memory model needed to manage the active agents and the state of the store during the execution. Second, the agent interpreter that executes the instructions of the current agent iteratively and calculates the new agents to be executed at the next time instant. Finally, the constraint solver components which are the modules that deal with constraints. In this paper, we describe the implementation of these components and present an example of a real system modelled in tccp.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

How Are DOH Hospitals Funded?

How are government hospitals funded? What are the sources of their funds and how are these allocated to them? This Note takes a deeper look at this and offers some insights and suggestions in addressing certain issues attendant to it.health sector, health care reform, health management, Philippines, health, health funds, government hospitals

Magna Carta of Public Health Workers: Does it really Fulfill its Intent?

The Magna Carta of Public Health Workers (RA 7305) was enacted to ensure that health workers are properly compensated, thereby helping to promote better delivery of quality health care service. This Note, however, poses some questions after examining data and information regarding payment and funding of the Magna Carta benefits. Does the law really fulfill its original intent? Or does it cause more damage than good?health sector, hospitals, health service delivery, Philippines, health, health funds, disaster risk management, health workers

Museos inclusivos españoles. Una oferta en la red

SIAM. Series Iberoamericanas de Museología. Año 3, Vol.

A characterisation of reliability tools for Software Defined Networks

Software Defined Network (SDN) is a new paradigm in networking that introduces great flexibility, allowing the dynamic configuration of parts of the network through centralised programming. SDN has been successfully applied in field networks, and is now being applied to wireless and mobile networks, generating Software Defined Mobile/Wireless networks (SDWNs). SDN can be also combined with Network Function Virtualization (NFV) producing a software network in which the specific hardware is replaced by general purpose computing equipment running SDN and NFV software solutions. This highly programmable and flexible network introduces many challenges from the point of view of reliability (or robustness), and operators need to ensure the same level of confidence as in previous, less flexible deployments. This paper provides a first study of the current tools used to analyse the reliability of SDNs before deployment and/or during the exploitation of the network. Most of these tools offer some kind of automatic verification, supported by algorithms based on formal methods, but they do not differentiate between fixed and mobile/wireless networks. In the paper we provide a number of classifications of the tools to make this selection easier for potential users, and we also identify promising research areas where more effort needs to be made.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech