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Introduction: Hospital beds, human resources, and medical equipment are the costliest elements in the health system and play an essential role at the time of treatment. In this paper, different phases of the NEDA 2026 project and its methodological approach were presented and its formulation process was analysed using the Kingdon model of policymaking. Methods: Iran Health Roadmap (NEDA 2026) project started in March 2016 and ended in March 2017. The main components of this project were hospital beds, clinical human resources, specialist personnel, capital medical equipment, laboratory facilities, emergency services, and service delivery model. Kingdon model of policymaking was used to evaluate NEDA 2026 development and implementation. In this study, all activities to accomplish each step in the Kingdon model was described. Results: The followings were done to accomplish the goals of each step: collecting experts’ viewpoint (problem identification and definition), systematic review of the literature, analysis of previous experiences, stakeholder analysis, economic analysis, and feasibility study (solution appropriateness analysis), three-round Delphi survey (policy survey and scrutinization), and intersectoral and interasectoral agreement (policy legislation). Conclusion: In the provision of an efficient health service, various components affect each other and the desired outcome, so they need to be considered as parts of an integrated system in developing a roadmap for the health system. Thus, this study demonstrated the cooperation process at different levels of Iran’s health system to formulate a roadmap to provide the necessary resources for the health sector for the next 10 years and to ensure its feasibility using the Kingdon policy framework.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has had destructive influences on social and economic systems as well as many aspects of human life. In this study, we aimed to estimate the economic effects of COVID-19 at the individual and societal levels during a fiscal year. This cost of illness analysis was used to estimate the economic burden of COVID-19 in Iran. Data of the COVID-19 patients referred to the hospitals affiliated to Bushehr University of Medical Sciences in 2021 were collected through the Hospital Information System (HIS). The study methodology was based upon the human capital approach and bottom-up technique. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in 9711 confirmed hospital cases and 717 deaths in Bushehr province during the study period. The direct and indirect costs were estimated to be $1446.06 and $3081.44 per patient. The economic burden for the province and country was estimated to be $43.97 and $2680.88 million. The results showed that the economic burden of this disease particularly premature death costs is remarkably high. Therefore, in order to increase the resiliency of the health system and the stability in service delivery, preventive-oriented strategies have to be more seriously considered by policymakers.

Background: Avoidable mortality as an indicator for assessing the health system performance has caught the attention of researchers for a long time. In this study we aimed to compare the health system performance using this indicator in rural and urban areas of one of Iran's southern provinces. Methods: All deaths (29916) which happened during 2004-2011 in Bushehr province were assessed. Nolte and McKee's avoidable deaths model was used to distinguish avoidable and unavoidable conditions. Accordingly, all deaths were classified into four categories including three avoidable death categories and one unavoidable death category. STATA software was used to conduct Poisson Regression Test and agestandardized death rate. Results: Findings showed that avoidable mortality rates declined in both urban and rural areas at 3.33% per year, but decline rates were influenced by Ischemic Heart Disease (IHD) and preventable death categories to treatable death category. Annual decline rate for IHD category in rural and urban areas was nearly the same as 8%, but in preventable death category, rural areas experienced more decreases than urban ones (7% vs 5% respectively). However, decline rate in treatable mortality neither in urban and nor in rural areas was statistically significant. Conclusion: Despite the annual decline in the rate of avoidable deaths, policy making initiatives especially screening and inter-sectoral measures targeting cause of deaths such as colon and breast cancers, hypertension, lung cancer and traffic accidents, can still further decrease avoidable deaths in both areas.