The Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health has joined the international Decision Support Initiative (iDSI), a global consortium working with low- and middle-income countries as they aim to make healthcare investment decisions that reflect the best value for money.
Led by the Center for Global Development, iDSI received a $14.5 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on Universal Health Coverage day on 12 December 2018. Over the next five years, the initiative will provide technical support for government agencies in Asia and Africa, as well as develop global public goods for health technology assessment (HTA) capacity development in low- and middle-income countries, such as free software for decision analysis, recommendations for conduct and use of real-world evidence to support implementation of Universal Health Coverage.
iDSI endeavours to generate long-term, locally-owned solutions through building capacities for using evidence in policy and clinical decisions. Its impact to date includes influencing policy in eight countries — China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, South Africa, Tanzania and Ghana — where there has been tangible progress towards national institutions being established to embed value-for-money into decision-making about what medicines, vaccines or other health services should be offered to the population, and how these could be procured in the most cost-effective way.
“The Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at the National University of Singapore is delighted to be a contributing partner to the international Decision Support Initiative. The mission of iDSI to support evidence-based decision-making in global public health is aligned to the mission of the School, with the aim of translating research discoveries to improve the health of global communities,” said Dean, Professor Teo Yik Ying.
The School joins iDSI as part of the Asia HTA Consortium together with the National Health Foundation of Thailand, and the Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program (HITAP). The five other core partners in this global effort include the Global Health and Development Group at Imperial College London, the China National Health Development Research Center, the Health Economics Research Unit (HERU) of the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Programme, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, and the Clinton Health Access Initiative.
For more information, visit the iDSI website.