The Institute of Medicine will establish a 14-person standing committee that will serve the US Agency for International Development (USAID) as it evolves policy, plans, and programming to assist partner or recipient countries to navigate the economic transition of health.

This appointed committee would meet with USAID on an on-going basis to discuss issues related to short- and long-term program planning, and would anticipate, and be responsive to the sponsor’s need for continuing advice or other services. It would provide to USAID an iterative, interactive, multi-disciplinary, expert-informed process for refining agency plans and programs pertinent to strengthening health systems that are evolving from a public sector focus to one suitable for mixed systems.

The committee would include experts with a background in low- and middle-income country health systems management, health economics and financing in developing countries, actuarial science, quality of care, health insurance in the low- and middle-income context, mixed public and private sector systems, information systems, behavior change and prevention and promotion, eHealth, modeling, and patient attitudes (medical and social anthropology). These experts would come from not only developed countries, but also developing countries to include representatives of countries that have successfully made the economic transition of health care financing.

The standing committee would maintain surveillance of the field of health systems strengthening in developing countries, discuss planning and program development efforts, and serve for USAID as a focal point within the Institute of Medicine for discussions and potential follow-on ad hoc studies related to:

· The identification of best practices for financing developing country health systems;
· The large scale implementation of national health care financing schemes for mixed systems;
· Support for the conceptualization of sound scientific studies to identify best practices where they
may not be established;
· USAID’s health systems strengthening research and knowledge building agenda;
· Support for relevant operations and implementation science research;
· Advice on USAID plans for investing in mixed health systems financing mechanisms;
· Insights on relevant monitoring and evaluation approaches;
· Assistance in the dissemination of knowledge generated on these issues.
The committee will convene approximately three times annually to conduct these discussions related to the economic transition of health. In addition the committee will formulate statements of task for potential targeted studies, each of which would be subject to institutional review and approval and subsequently be conducted by a separately appointed ad hoc committee in accordance with the appropriate IOM/NRC policy and procedures.