NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

The 2006 Transparency International report is out, and this year’s focus is on health services–apparently a sector particularly prone to corruption.? Why? The executive summary highlights three reasons: imbalance of information (health professionals know more than patients, and pharmaceutical companies know more about their products than public officials),? uncertainty in health markets (how many people will fall ill , where/when humanitarian disasters will strike makes it hard to manage resources), and the opaque, complex relations within the health system.

(Via PSDBlog.)

See our case study on the Health Store business in Kenya, which faced significant institutional corruption–and triumphed, thanks to its franchise model.

I’ve gotten personally sensitive on the subject of health.? The poor health services in Washington DC need to be exposed. The quality of care: excellent. The delivery of care: insufficient. The information for access to care: abysmal.