Mohammad Javad Kabir, Alireza Heidari, Nahid Jafari, Honarvar Mohammad Reza, Sajad Moeini, Zahra Khatirnamani,
Volume 16, Issue 6 (Feb 2023)
Background and Aim: Many health policies are not implemented or incompletely implemented after approval. This issue significantly reduces the popularity and responsiveness of the top managers of the health system and leads to service disruption in the target community. Therefore, this study was conducted to explain the existing challenges in the implementation of health policies.
Materials and Methods: A qualitative study was conducted in 2021. The participants in the study were 20 scientific and executive experts. The data was collected using an interview guide and the in-depth individual interview method and was analyzed using the content analysis method using thematic analysis with Graneheim and Lundman's approach.
Results: The challenges include the policies formulation (lack of evidence-informed decision-making, lack of attention to the details of the implementation, the change of the initial text of the policy, conflict of interests, unclarity the executives, the lack of proper integration between the political and technical components of the policies, the weak participation of the main stakeholders, the lack of the same understanding of policies concept between policy makers and executives and lack of budget forecasting), challenges of policies implementation (uncertainty about roles of executive organizations, lack of executive attachment, conflict of interest, lack of project management, change of formulated policies with change of executives, little belief among executives, lack of executive guarantee, lack of operational plan) and challenges of policies evaluation (Inadequate supervision and the absence of an informational and supervisory dashboard).
Conclusion: Using effective solutions to solve the challenges extracted in the stages of formulation, implementation and evaluation of health policies can lead to achieving the goals of the formulated policies and improving the health of the society.
