Fundacion Plenitud- Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Scope and mission of the institution
The Plenitud Foundation is a think tank devoted to research and development to promote sustainable development in the Dominican Republic. It is a private, independent, not-for-profit organization, created by Presidential decree on May 9, 2002. PLENITUD's vision is to cooperate in the building of an equitable and sustainable world; its mission is to produce and disseminate knowledge to sustain evidence-informed decision-making to promote sustainable development. The main specialty of PLENITUD is health policy and systems research, with particular interests in the production and development of knowledge and evidence that inform political decision-making processes and ultimately strengthen health systems.
Projects related to HPSR
PLENITUD is presently coordinating the Dominican chapter of the Health Observatory with funding from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which is a joint project with the Mexican Health Foundation and the Carlos Slim Institute of Health (ICSS). The project aims to promote research networks to monitor health system performance, such as national health accounts and financial protection, effective coverage, burden of disease, human resources and others. We coordinate the REDACS – the Americas network on health accounts – and presently are supporting WHO in Latin America and the Caribbean consultations for the methodological revision of the System of Health Accounts (SHA).
PLENITUD is developing a Virtual Intelligence Center, which processes statistics of specific development topics, compiles bibliographies, and offers support services for research. The Center will be one of the tools of the Health Observatory and will be used to follow a series of indicators to measure the performance of the health system.
One important study currently in the design phase is the application of the systemic perspective to the health system, visualized through the lenses of women health – particularly in using maternal health and breast cancer as proxies to assess overarll health system performance. The Alliance flagship document on Systems Thinking will inform the main methodological bases. PLENITUD is also in the process of developing the Dominican chapter of Tómatelo a Pecho, in coordination with the Mexican Health Foundation.
Highlight of recent or forthcoming event:
On September 13-17, 2010, the third LAC consultation on the revision of the System of Health Accounts took place in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, organized by the network of health accounts of the region, REDACS of the LAC Health Observatory – an initiative from Funsalud, Mexico and the Carlos Slim Health Institute (ICCS). The event, organized by Fundacion Plenitud, coordinator of the network and of the Health Observatory of the Dominican Republic, was financed by the World Health Organization (WHO), which is supporting these consultations in all the regions of the world. The event has also the technical support of OECD and Eurostat, aiming to obtaining a world standard for health accounts methodology.
On May 2010, the DR Health Observatory was launched with two international events: a seminar on LAC Health Systems' Financing and another on Breast Cancer and the Health System. The events had the participation of Dr. Felicia Knaul, Director of the Harvard Global Health Equity Initiative (HGEI) and coordinator of the Global Task Force on Expanded Access to Cancer Care and Control in Developing Countries, as well as researchers from Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
Related publications/reports
The Alliance invites its partners to send any final reports & publications related to the field of health policy and systems research they would like to be published under their profile.