Countries across the globe are
faced with the challenge of bettering their health financing systems to achieve
and maintain universal coverage of health services. Demands for improved health
coverage have pushed the issue further up political agendas. It is therefore
paramount to identify potential frameworks so that coverage is optimized and health financing is effectively managed.

The symposium ‘Universal Coverage: Can We Guarantee Health
for All?’ brought together policy makers, practitioners, academics, consumers
and experts from the public and private health care sectors in support of
recognising the importance of health as a public good. The meeting addressed
approaches to making access to quality health services affordable in lower and
middle income countries in particular. 

BMC Public Health has published a supplement of
proceedings from the International Symposium on Health systems held at Monash University Sunway Campus Bandar
Sunway, Malaysia, October 3-5 2011 which highlights key health systems
challenges and looks at how these may be combated. The supplement presents the
need to understand and take into account the vulnerability of people and health
systems for optimizing universal coverage and brings forward country case
studies to explore the feasibility and implications of reform.

The publication of the supplement was supported by Global
Public Health, Monash University Sunway Campus; Philips Healthcare; Deloitte
& Touche, Singapore; and Sanofi Aventis Malaysia.

The supplement can be viewed here. Readers are
invited to join the discussions by using the ‘comment’ option below each
individual article.