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New Book Explores Innovations in Global Health.

July 22 2019

Toronto – Poor access to care in low- and middle-income countries due to high costs, geographic barriers, and a shortage of trained medical staff has motivated many organizations to rethink their model of health service delivery. Many of these new models are being developed by private sector actors, including non-profits, such as non-governmental organizations, and for-profits, such as social enterprises. By partnering extensively with public sector organizations, these non-state actors have enormous potential to scale innovation in global health. A new book from Rotman-UTP Publishing, Private Sector Entrepreneurship in Global Health, provides insights into how these leading organizations operate and target hard-to-reach groups may yield key insights to sustainably improve health care for all.

Private Sector Entrepreneurship in Global Health includes writings by management, medicine, and social science experts who have studied trends in private sector health care innovations over the last ten years. It provides a wide range of examples from many regions and health areas and outlines tools to assess the performance of innovative private sector health programs in low- and middle-income countries. The studies reported in this volume explore new marketing and finance models, digital health innovations, and unique organizational processes emerging from the private sector to serve those most in need. Drawing on the analysis of over one thousand organizations engaged in health market innovations, this volume is a valuable resource for researchers and students in management, global health, medicine, development studies, health economics, and anthropology, as well as program managers, social impact investors, funders, and policymakers interested in understanding approaches emerging from the private sector in health care.

The book is the culmination of more than a decade of collaborative work conducted at the University of Toronto, in partnership with colleagues around the world through the Toronto Health Organization Performance Evaluation (T-HOPE).  This interdisciplinary research team combines health and management experience and expertise with the aim of connecting theory to practice in the field of global health innovation and performance. It is based at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and Department of Family and Community Medicine.

Editors of Private Sector Entrepreneurship in Global Health are:

  • Kathryn Mossman is a research coordinator at Women’s College Hospital and manager of the Toronto Health Organization Performance Evaluation (T-HOPE) team at the University of Toronto.

     

  • Anita McGahan is University Professor, Professor of Strategic Management and the George E. Connell Chair in Organizations & Society at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.

     

  • Will Mitchell is the Anthony S. Fell Chair in New Technologies and Commercialization at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

     

  • Onil Bhattacharyya is a family physician and the Frigon-Blau Chair in Family Medicine Research at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto. He is also an associate professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto.

“Private sector organizations, including for-profit social enterprises and non-profit NGOs, play a large role in delivering healthcare in many countries. Harnessing the capabilities and activities of these organizations can help achieve sustainable healthcare for those who need it most. A range of organizations in the private sector have implemented technical, organizational, and management innovations that provide healthcare and promote health in a range of settings. These innovations can inform healthcare in other settings,” say the editors.

Advance Praise for Private Sector Entrepreneurship in Global Health 

"A timely and hugely valuable resource for global health practitioners, who are challenged to achieve progress towards Universal Health Coverage in resource-poor contexts. It presents great evidence of the role of private sector entrepreneurship in innovatively expanding both access and quality of health care to improve desired outcomes." -- Muhammad Pate, Global Health Institute, Duke University, former Minister of State for Health, Nigeria

"This is an important book that elucidates the important role of non-governmental stakeholders in solving trenchant global health problems. It is a probing, thoughtful analysis of real-world challenges in scaling social innovations – and how organizations around the globe are meeting these challenges." -- Roy Ahn, ScD, Vice President, Public Health, NORC at the University of Chicago

Rotman-UTP Publishing is an imprint of University of Toronto Press. Founded in 1901, University of Toronto Press (UTP) is Canada’s leading academic publisher and one of the largest university presses in North America. UTP has published over 6,500 books, with well over 3,500 of these still in print. Each year, UTP publishes approximately 200 new scholarly, course, reference, and general interest books. For more information, visit https://utorontopress.com/.

The Rotman School of Management is part of the University of Toronto, a global centre of research and teaching excellence at the heart of Canada’s commercial capital. Rotman is a catalyst for transformative learning, insights and public engagement, bringing together diverse views and initiatives around a defining purpose: to create value for business and society. For more information, visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca.

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For more information:

Ken McGuffin
Manager, Media Relations
Rotman School of Management
University of Toronto
Voice 416.946.3818
E-mail mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca