Journal of Healthcare Leadership

Transforming Primary and Community Care: Enhancing Workforce, Organizational, and System Level Capacity

Primary and community care are central to achieving effective, equitable, and sustainable health systems across the Asia–Pacific region. As countries confront growing chronic disease burdens, ageing populations, and rising service demand, these sectors play a crucial role in prevention, continuity of care, and reducing avoidable hospitalisations. However, primary and community care are operating in increasingly complex environments shaped by workforce constraints, system fragmentation, digital transformation, and climate-related disruption. Strengthening leadership at individual, organisational, and system levels has become essential to navigate these pressures, align reforms, and sustain high‑quality care. This Special Issue focuses on leadership‑informed strategies to build resilient, adaptive, and future‑ready primary and community care systems across diverse Asia–Pacific contexts.

Despite their foundational role, primary and community care systems across the Asia–Pacific face persistent leadership and capacity gaps. Workforce shortages, maldistribution, and limited leadership development constrain providers’ ability to manage complex care and lead service innovation. Weak governance, fragmented financing, and poor coordination further undermine system performance. At the same time, digital health and artificial intelligence present both opportunities and leadership challenges, requiring ethical governance, change management, and workforce readiness. Climate change adds urgency, demanding adaptive leadership to ensure service continuity and community resilience. Advancing healthcare leadership in these settings is critical to translating innovation into impact, guiding system reform, and ensuring that technological and policy advancements strengthen rather than destabilise primary and community care.

Aligned with the Journal of Healthcare Leadership, this Article Collection foregrounds leadership, management, and governance in strengthening primary and community care. This special article collection seeks to synthesise emerging evidence and showcase transformative approaches to strengthening workforce, organisational, and system‑level capacity. By drawing on multidisciplinary research, comparative analyses, and real‑world case studies, it aims to inform policy and practice and support the development of resilient, equitable, and future‑ready primary and community care across the Asia–Pacific. The research topic welcomes articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

1. Strengthening primary and community care workforce capacity
2. Building organizational capacity and system-level capability
3. Digital health solutions and the responsible integration of artificial intelligence
4. Adapting to climate change and enhancing sustainability
5. Evidence-informed policy and advancing system reform
6. Financing models for sustainable primary and community care

Keywords: Primary and community care, Health workforce capacity and capability, System and organizational transformation, Digital health and responsible artificial intelligence, Sustainable and resilient health systems

Professor Zhanming Liang is a recognised leader in health management competency, leadership development, and digital health workforce research. Her work integrates empirical research with real‑world application, most notably through the development of the MCAP Tool and her leadership of the National Commissioning Training Program. She has published widely in Q1 journals and collaborates with partners across Australia, China, Southeast Asia, and Europe.

Dr. Jukkrit Wungrath is an Associate Professor at the ASEAN Institute for Health Development (AIHD), Mahidol University, specializing in Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and Primary Health Care management. His work focuses on health financing and social health protection, with a strong commitment to enhancing health equity and policy development within the ASEAN region. In addition to his teaching and research, serves as an editorial board member and peer reviewer for several international academic journals. Dedicated to advancing public health through curriculum design, academic services, and international collaborative research.

Dr. Fowie Ng is currently Associate Professor at the School of Management and Programme Leader of the Bachelor of Health Information and Services Management (Honours) of Tung Wah College. He received his PhD in Health Policy and Management from the University of Hull in UK. Before joining Tung Wah College, he has extensive teaching, research and management experiences at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, SPEED, University of Hong Kong, HKUSPACE, Chinese University of Hong Kong, CUSCS, Hong Kong Baptist University SCE, CityU SCOPE, Open University of Hong Kong and University of Sunderland.

Dr. Mohd Arshil bin Moideen is a clinical Epidemiologist with 25 years of experience in community engagements, health crisis response, Infectious and Vector Borne Diseases and Heat Related Research.

Prof. Vivienne Zhang is a Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University in China. Her research interests are health policy evaluation, health insurance reform, economic burden of diseases, and telemedicine evaluation. She is now the committee member of Health Insurance Committee of China Health Economics Association; the member of Public Economics Committee of China Health Economics Association; and the member of Health Economics Association of Guangdong Province. She has got more than 10 grants and published more than 50 international and domestic journals such as Social Science & Medicine, Health Policy and Planning, Journal of Healthcare Leadership, Journal of Medical Internet Research et al.

Assoc. Prof. Michelle Krahe is a Principal Research Fellow in Digital Health Implementation at James Cook University and Program Manager of the Northern Australian Regional Digital Health Collaborative. Her research focuses on digital health implementation, health systems strengthening, service equity, programme evaluation and knowledge translation, with particular attention to rural, regional and remote communities. She has expertise in implementation science and data visualisation, translating complex evidence into practical strategies that support health service improvement and sustainable system change. Her work is grounded in ethical, equitable and open approaches to digital innovation, including the responsible adoption of digital health and artificial intelligence-enabled solutions.

Prof. Dongwoon Han, is a Professor at Hanyang University College of Medicine and Director of the Center for Global Health and Development, Institute of Health Services Management, Hanyang University. His work focuses on global health, health systems strengthening, health policy, health services management, and traditional, complementary and integrative medicine. He has extensive experience in international health cooperation, ODA project formulation and evaluation, and collaborative research across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. His recent research focuses on strengthening Universal Health Coverage (UHC) through regional physician workforce policies and primary health care system development. In particular, his team conducts various studies on global Health Systems Strengthening for UHC programs, adopting a primary health care approach to ensure equitable access to essential health services without financial hardship.

Prof. Peter P. Yuen is Dean of the College of Professional and Continuing Education (CPCE) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). Prof. Yuen’s research involves economic evaluation of health policies and systems, and health services management. He is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of Public Administration and Policy and an Editorial Committee member of Asia Pacific Journal of Health Management. He is a founding Fellow of the Hong Kong College of Health Services Executives, and an Honorary Fellow of the Australian College of Health Services Management.

Prof. Shanquan Chen is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Community Medicine and Public Health Practice, School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong, and an Extraordinary Associate Professor at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. His research focuses on mental health, dementia, ageing, and health equity, integrating epidemiology, health economics, and advanced data analytics to inform policy and improve care for vulnerable populations. He has published in leading international journals including JAMA Psychiatry, Nature Mental Health, The Lancet Regional Health, BMC Medicine, and EClinicalMedicine. His work also draws on experience with the World Bank and UNICEF, with a particular interest in digital health and responsible data-driven innovation for equitable health systems.

All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo desk assessment and peer review if they can pass the desk assessments as part of our standard editorial process; the Guest Advisor for this Collection will not be handling the manuscripts (unless they are an Editorial Board member).

The deadline for submitting manuscripts is 5 April 2027.

Please contact Saniya Qureshi at [email protected]  with any queries and discount codes regarding this Article Collection.