Health system performance assessment in several countries

The Commission supports the health authorities of Croatia, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia in assessing the performance of their health systems in order to enable them to further improve the efficiency of health systems.

Context

A thorough understanding of how the health system works, as a whole and in its interconnected components, is essential to formulate policies to improve it. Reliable assessment frameworks, agreed by all stakeholders, are useful tools to monitor health reforms’ implementation.

Support delivered

The support provided to the health authorities in Croatia, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia enabled them to:

• Identify domains of performance of their health system and populate them with indicators;
• Involve stakeholders in the design of agreed performance frameworks;
• Analyse and communicate the information;
• Build capacity in the national administration for sustainable follow up;
• Feed the findings of the assessment into policy-making.

Results achieved

National health authorities from those five Member States adopted frameworks for assessing the performance of their health system, structured in domains and indicators according to their situation and policy needs. Performance frameworks were developed in participatory processes, in which stakeholders could express their views, needs and expectations.

Health authorities were also supported in adopting tailored frameworks to monitor and evaluate specific health reforms and investments.