Table 3 Recommendations for effective Public-Private Partnerships in Primary Healthcare

Education

▪ Improving training of the private health practitioners based on the latest treatment guidelines [13, 28, 29, 49, 51, 63]

▪ Ensuring the knowledge transfer of the most effective, latest and evidence-based treatment guidelines [29, 39, 47, 49]

▪ Effective information, education and communication strategies in the community [26]

▪ Conducting sensitisation workshops [67]

▪ Conducting retraining courses during participation based on needs assessment [6, 34]

Management

▪ Choosing a strong interface to ensure coordination between partners [8, 9, 46, 47, 51, 57, 61, 67]

▪ Organising regular meetings to maintain communication and to foster and coordinate plans [9, 47, 62]

▪ Creating more commitment among partners [13, 21, 26, 47, 49, 51, 53, 58, 61, 62, 64, 70]

▪ Creation of a national policy document outlining schemes for PPP [61, 70]

▪ Having a clear delegation of duties and creating process indicators for initiating and sustaining partnerships with private providers [20, 30, 35, 53, 58, 61]

▪ Determining a shared vision, strong governance and effective management to achieve objectives [21, 35, 39, 53, 66, 70]

Human resources

▪ Creating good communication between all members of the PPPs [9, 31, 51, 57, 70]

▪ Taking concerns of all members in initial seriously [51]

▪ Encouraging positive attitudes towards the PPPs, particularly during the initial stages [51, 53]

▪ Convincing the private sector that they will benefit from the PPPs [51, 61]

▪ Creating change thinking among staff [5, 9, 67]

▪ Attracting strong stakeholders into the partnership [47, 50, 51, 53, 57]

▪ Facilitating respectful relations in the partnership [9, 57, 70]

▪ Appreciating the attitude and performance of the staff [31]

▪ Maintaining transparency between sectors to build trust [9, 31, 32, 47, 52, 66, 70]

Financial resources

▪ Introducing financial incentives for private sector motivation [4, 32, 56, 69]

▪ Ensuring availability of appropriate funds [6, 28]

▪ Taking the determination of sustainable financing for partnership seriously [49, 62]

▪ Identifying alternate financial suppliers [59]

Information and technology systems

▪ Ensuring the existence of a quality assurance mechanism and program [6, 13, 20, 54, 59, 70]

▪ Establishing norms [15, 61]

▪ Tackling morality and accountability issues [15, 51, 65]

▪ Building a legislative framework [9, 15, 61, 70]

▪ Defining operational strategies [8, 15, 27, 58]

▪ Strengthening supervision of private sector [6, 9, 47, 51, 65]

▪ Setting a monitoring and documentation system for referrals [9, 13, 63]

▪ Strengthening the information system [39, 57, 67]

▪ Determining the appropriate referral structure [9, 61, 67]

▪ Using digital tools in facilitating project operations and also in ensuring adherence to protocols by both providers and patients [42, 68]

▪ Ensuring continuity in care for patients by the strength of provider networks and determine policies and program actions [31, 61]

▪ Establishing procedural requirement in getting the funds released timely for grant/reimbursement to the private partner [53]

▪ Creating a payment-based financial system [27, 32, 46, 69]

Others

▪ Ensuring flexibility of the PPPs model to adapt to changing circumstances [28, 51]

▪ Encouraging political and community support for partnership [43, 53, 61, 68]