TY - JOUR T1 - Nurturing and Optimizing Networks of Care to Maximize Benefits to Patients, Health Workers, and Health Systems JF - Global Health: Science and Practice JO - GLOB HEALTH SCI PRACT DO - 10.9745/GHSP-D-22-00516 VL - 10 IS - 6 SP - e2200516 AU - Kelly Saldaña AU - Nicholas Leydon AU - Steve Hodgins Y1 - 2022/12/21 UR - http://www.ghspjournal.org/content/10/6/e2200516.abstract N2 - See related article by Kalaris et al.In a commentary summarizing a landscape review of Networks of Care conducted by the World Health Organization, Kalaris et al.1 argue that Networks of Care can improve quality and continuity of care and strengthen health systems functions by improving relationships between different providers—and that all these improvements will accelerate progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals.This is a lot of hope to place on one approach. Often in global health, promising practices such as these are oversimplified and oversold as a panacea, ultimately underdelivering on their promise of success. Although we share the authors’ optimism regarding Networks of Care, we think that to ensure that Networks of Care ultimately lead to more effective, replicable patient care, global health practitioners must galvanize more implementation research, operations management capacities, and facilitative policies that elucidate intrinsic and extrinsic factors influencing and unlocking the potential of Networks of Care.Building a solid evidence base for Networks of Care first requires a clear understanding of the problems such networks could solve. Evidence generation can then focus on the extent to which they have achieved their intended benefits, which may vary by circumstances. Evidence needed includes documentation of the benefits accrued through existing and informal Networks of Care, what specific incentive structures have helped (such as payments to traditional birth attendants for referring obstetric patients to more formal care providers), and what adaptation of these incentives could further strengthen network function.There are 5 areas where Networks of Care may be a potential solution: New approaches are needed to improve quality of care. Gaps in quality of care are now responsible for more deaths globally than … ER -