What health systems do? Functions as a starting point to assess health systems performance

Abstract

Health system assessment (HSA) tools are often built around static health system building blocks, which lead to largely descriptive narrative and lack of linkages to health system outcomes. The development of a common framework that would also focus on performance outcomes is long overdue. We analysed the key HSA frameworks and tools based on them, with the purpose of identifying a common approach that would allow to link health system components to specific outcomes. The presentation will focus on using the health system functions as the basis of conducting the performance assessment. In a second step, the presentation will elaborate on the intermediate and final health system goals as part of the HSPA framework. It will explain their links to the four functions and thus, discuss their relevance for performance assessment.