The Commonwealth Fund continues to seek and nurture partnerships with international foundations in order to expand and enrich its current programs. In 2003, the Fund established a partnership with the Health Foundation
(8) that will expand the Harkness Fellowships in Health Care Policy to include two additional fellows from the United Kingdom, bringing the total number of U.K. Harkness Fellows to seven. Geared toward health care practitioners, such as senior clinicians and managers in the health service, as well as senior civil servants involved directly in policy, the Harkness/Health Foundation Fellowships should help to enrich health policy development and leadership in the U.K.
In the fall of 2002, the Fund joined the Bertelsmann International Network for Health Policy and Reform
(9) in forming a collaboration among 15 countries to share information on policy reforms, innovations, and best practices. Composed of independent experts from foundations and research institutions in Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the network describes, analyzes, and reports on health sector reforms and trends in industrialized nations on a "real-time" basis. Reports are produced twice each year and disseminated to policymakers and, through the Internet, to a broader international policy audience. The second meeting of the collaboration was held in Vienna, Austria, in September 2003.
An ongoing collaboration with the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation
(10) has enabled two Canadian Harkness Associates to participate in the fellowship program each year since 2001. In addition, the Fund continues to build on its partnership with the U.K.'s Nuffield Trust,
(11) with which it has cosponsored the annual U.S.-U.K. Meeting on Health Care Quality since 1999.
