Building a socially accountable health professions school: towards unity for health

In many countries, health systems suffer from fragmentation as different health activities conducted by different stakeholders are poorly coordinated, resulting in a mitigated performance to improve quality, equity, relevance and cost-effectiveness in health care. The impact on health would be enhanced if main stakeholders such as health professional schools, service organizations, professional associations, health policy bodies and the general public shared a common vision on how to best meet people's priority health needs. An approach initiated by WHO in 1999 and developed by The Network: Towards Unity for Health endeavours to create a unity of purpose and action among these stakeholders. This article comments on challenges and opportunities in implementing this approach whose pillars are integration and partnerships. The conditions for each stakeholder to become more socially accountable and the role of a teacher, researcher, manager or community representative in contributing to this process are discussed.