The issues
In the world today, 400 million people lack access to essential care.
Although there has been undeniable progress in terms of global health, there are still huge areas of need, particularly in formulating a long-term solution to health concerns.
This is especially true in Africa, where health systems remain fragile because of a lack of financial resources, organisational issues and human resources. In this context, Solthis is working to develop a concrete, complete and permanent solution to public health needs.
Our strategy
For over 15 years, we have been developing our exper-tise using a systematic and multidisciplinary approach to work around the various components of health systems, as defined by the WHO, to create a global momentum across countries. This involves joint action both on the quality of the provision of healthcare services and on the promotion of health and community mobilisation. Solthis has chosen two areas of intervention in order to influence the offer of care services: improving the quality and performance of healthcare services, but also support for the evolution of the content and organization of health services, notably by optimising care pathways and their organisation.
The ongoing operation of these services requires essen-tial resources and preconditions such as training and support of staff, the quality of production and analysis of medical results by laboratories as well as supply chains guaranteeing continuous access to treatment. See our 8 expertise domains
Solthis would also like the provision of care to be user-centred in order to recognise the role of patients and communities in improving the quality of healthcare ser-vices. We believe in the power of the collective, in the value of bringing together civil society actors, researchers and public actors for resilient healthcare systems.
Solthis in the field :
• Focuses on a strategy of health promotion and community mobilisation which aims to enable users to define their own needs and to promote their primary role in defining services through feedback on their experiences or their involvement in steering and governance.
• Acts to improve health services across the continuum of care simultaneously covering promotion, prevention, testing, therapy, long-term monitoring of patients, taking into account all patient needs, whether clinical and biological, cognitive, psycho-social or emotional, in order to achieve the best possible health results as well as the commitment and empowerment of patients.
Solthis supports multidisciplinary healthcare teams in order to facilitate their work and enable them to offer the most appropriate services. This capacity building work begins with addressing skill needs. To this end, Solthis trains various healthcare professionals: clinicians, nurses, midwives, pharmacists and paramedics.
To improve patient care further and to support healthcare teams in the practical implementation of their theoretical knowledge, Solthis' medical teams assist healthcare workers in their day-to-day work with a programme of on-the-job training, mentoring or internships.
Medicines and medical products are fundamental to quality care. The main challenges for Solthis are ensuring that healthcare providers have consistent access to quality products, eliminating supply shortages and ensuring their appropriate use.
To achieve this, Solthis provides technical assistance aimed at improving the knowledge of those involved in the various stages of the supply chain: selection, quantification, purchase, storage and local distribution. Whilst making products available is a major task, ensuring that they are then used to best effect is one of Solthis' main concerns. We therefore develop activities aimed at improving the use of medical products, whilst also taking action with regards to the quality of prescriptions, dispensation and the preparation of patients for treatment.
Solthis also supports those involved at different levels of the relevant institutions- both national and local- working particularly to coordinate the actions of all actors, to create practice reference documents, to control pharmaceutical systems allied with information systems and the training of relevant professionals.
Laboratory and technical staff must be able to use specific tools and have the requisite skills to diagnose diseases and monitor patients. Solthis provides teams with technical and material support in arriving at, and interpreting, results. We also work to reinforce the link between technical facilities and other health services in order to ensure that test results facilitate optimal patient care. Partnerships with French hospital laboratories and scientific collaborations are also developed by Solthis to support laboratories further.
Generating high quality, complete and up-to-date data; gathering, compiling and then analysing this information, on a number of levels, are fundamental elements of good patient monitoring, the analysis of epidemics and the evaluation of health programmes; necessary facets of a reactive and functional information system. Solthis supports partners in the selection of information and statistical tools, the integration of monitoring and evaluation into the health system, user training and the systematic exchange of information at all levels of the health system access pyramid.
Solthis provides our partners with technical assistance in producing requests for subsidies and international funding. Solthis works to advocate the mobilisation of funds towards global health, to national, French and international authorities. Because of our position as an actor in the field as well as on an institutional level, Solthis also plays an active role in ensuring that international aid measures reflect the reality on the ground, in particular in fragile states. Finally Solthis fights for equitable access to healthcare for all, working through our research, advocacy and advisory activities, to help eliminate financial barriers to access to healthcare and to ensure the prioritisation of the solutions which are most cost-efficient for the patient as well as for the national health system.
Solthis shares its expertise with our national partners, supporting them in formulating national health policies and strategies, norms and technical procedures in the sector. Solthis also participates in the strengthening of consultation plans and the coordination of the various institutional players, including civil society (community organisations, monitoring organisations, patient networks etc).
Solthis also supports our national partners in the creation and monitoring of the different aspects of their human resources policies and performance management; i.e. national training programmes, organisational strategies for dealing with the low pay of certain categories of healthcare workers.
