Reunión Consultiva Regional de las Américas sobre la Evaluación del Desempeño de los Sistemas de Salud

• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; Spanish; Portuguese
• Published: Pan American Health Organization 2001
• Subjects: sistemas de salud; evaluación de sistemas de salud; Organización Mundial de la Salud; Medicine; R; Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Public aspects of medicine; RA1-1270; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doaj.org/article/0ddd76d2862d46b681a4b81d00efbe05

This piece summarizes a document entitled "Critical Issues in Health System Performance Assessment," which was prepared for the Regional Consultation of the Americas on Health Systems Performance Assessment, a meeting held in Washington, D.C., 8 to 10 May 2001. That gathering came about in response to the publication, by the World Health Organization (WHO), of its World Health Report 2000. Done by an advisory group, the Report focused on a comparative evaluation of the performance of the health systems of the WHO Member States. The task of preparing the Report was hindered by a series of factors, from the scar-city of basic data in some countries to the lack of reliable indicators--and especially uniform ones--that would make it possible to draw general conclusions. With a view to overcoming these deficiencies, an innovative methodology was conceived for the Report, based on the evaluation of processes and outcomes, which would make it possible to make valid comparative analyses. Unfortunately, the suitability of the methodology that was used in the Report has been criticized internationally and has led the WHO Director-General to take concrete steps for the next Report, which will come out in October 2002, in order to have improved results. This piece describes measures that need to be taken conceptually and methodologically, with an emphasis on changes in the system for evaluating health system performance and on involving every WHO Member State in the analysis of the data.