The Harmonized Health Facility Assessment (HHFA) is a comprehensive, standardized health facility survey that provides objective information on the availability of health facility services and the systems that facilities have in place to deliver the services at required standards of quality. The HHFA Data manager guide defines the data manager’s responsibilities in an HHFA and explains how to adapt and use the CSPro tool.
The Harmonized Health Facility Assessment (HHFA) is a comprehensive health facility survey that assesses that availability of health facility services and the capacity to provide these services at required standards of quality. The HHFA is accompanied by a set of tools, guidance documents and training materials. The HHFA Comprehensive guide serves as the main reference document for planning and implementing a country HHFA. This guide will promote understanding of: - What the HHFA is and the information it can and cannot provide. - The HHFA modules, questionnaires and CSPro electronic data collection tool. - The HHFA indicators, indices and their organization within the HHFA indicator inventory platform. - The HHFA data analysis platform. - The HHFA sampling and data collection methodologies. - The detailed steps involved in planning and implementing an HHFA. - Key concepts in review, interpretation and communication of HHFA findings. The HHFA Comprehensive guide is intended to help anyone involved in the detail of planning and implementing an HHFA and using HHFA data to strengthen country health services. This can include staff of the ministry of health (MoH), donor agencies and implementing partners, as well as academic institutions supporting the survey. The guidance will be of particular use to the multiparter country HHFA coordination group, the HHFA technical committee, the survey manager and the data analysts and report writers.
The Harmonized Health Facility Assessment (HHFA) is a comprehensive health facility survey that assesses that availability of health facility services and the capacity to provide these services at required standards of quality. The HHFA is accompanied by a set of tools, guidance documents and training materials. This short guide aims to provide a quick overview of the HHFA and its resource package. The Quick guide summarizes the technical, planning and implementation issues of the HHFA. It helps readers to gain a quick understanding of the main advantages, limitations and requirements of the HHFA. The HHFA Quick guide follows the structure of a companion reference document, the HHFA Comprehensive guide, to which it refers for details on technical issues and recommendations on how to conduct the assessment. The Quick guide targets senior officials of the ministry of health (MoH) and its partners, who are considering implementation of an HHFA in their country. The guide will also be useful as an introductory document for staff of the MoH, implementing partners and academic institutions who are involved in planning and implementing the HHFA and using its results.
Health equity for persons with disabilities – Guide for action, referred to as the Disability inclusion guide for action, provides practical guidance on the process that ministries of health should lead on to integrate disability inclusion into health systems governance, planning, and monitoring processes. It serves as the foundational resource to enable ministries of health and partners to implement the recommendations in the WHO Global report on health equity for persons with disabilities. It supports Member States to meet commitments to “leave no one behind” and achieve the highest attainable standard of health for all people, as outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and World Health Assembly resolution 74.8 on the highest attainable standard of health for persons with disabilities.
Noncommunicable disease facility-based monitoring guidance: Framework, indicators, and application provides the indicators needed for NCD facility-based patient and programme monitoring at primary care level. The purpose of this document is to improve availability and quality of NCD healthcare and to enhance healthcare professionals’ performance on early detection, screening, treatment, and complication assessment in primary healthcare for cardiovascular diseases including hypertension, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases, and cancer. Key target audiences are health facility providers and managers, along with international partners, governmental and nongovernmental organizations, civil society, and academic institutions, who are engaged with NCD healthcare provision in primary healthcare
Addressing comorbidities and risk factors for tuberculosis (TB) is a crucial component of the World Health Organization (WHO)’s End TB Strategy. This WHO operational handbook on tuberculosis. Module 6: tuberculosis and comorbidities aims to support countries in scaling up people-centred care, based on the latest WHO recommendations on TB and key comorbidities, and drawing upon additional evidence, best practices and inputs from various experts and stakeholders obtained during WHO processes. It is intended for use by people working in ministries of health, particularly TB programmes and the relevant departments or programmes responsible for comorbidities and health-related risk factors for TB such as HIV, diabetes, undernutrition, substance use, and tobacco use, as well as programmes addressing mental health and lung health. This operational handbook is a living document and will include a separate section for each of the key TB comorbidities or health-related risk factors. The second edition includes guidance for HIV-associated TB and on mental health conditions, which are two conditions strongly associated with TB and which result in higher mortality, poorer TB treatment outcomes and negatively impact health-related quality of life. The operational handbook aims to facilitate early detection, proper assessment and adequate management of people affected by TB and comorbidities. Full implementation of this guidance is expected to have a significant impact on TB treatment outcomes and health-related quality of life for people affected by TB.
The package of health system resilience indicators serves as a dedicated resource to measure and monitor health system resilience in routine operations as well as in the context of disruptive shocks and stressors. This work addresses an identified gap in measurement and monitoring of health system resilience. It complements the Health Systems Resilience Toolkit and supports implementation of the recommendations in WHO’s position paper on building health system resilience for UHC and health security. The package aims to support countries to progressively build their capacities to measure, monitor and build health system resilience from national to subnational levels covering health facilities and other service delivery platforms. It emphasizes an integrated approach to health system strengthening underpinned by essential public health functions, encompassing health emergency preparedness. It includes: - guidance on how to utilize and adapt the health system resilience indicators, including a step-by-step guide - a suite of recommended health system resilience indicators with technical specifications - supplementary indicators of relevance to health system resilience The primary target audience for this package is national and subnational health authorities (including planners and managers) and service providers, as well as local, regional, and global technical organizations and partners working on health system strengthening, including WHO, United Nations country teams, donors, nongovernment organizations, development and humanitarian agencies, and other health-related technical agencies.
This document provides guidance on the integrated analysis and use, at national level, of data collected from health facilities though routine health information systems (RHIS). The integrated approach provides general health service planners and managers with an overarching or “cross-cutting” view of health services, based on a limited set of tracer indicators that represent multiple health programmes and service components. Objectives: The guidance will promote an understanding of: the concept of integrated analysis of health services, using RHIS data; the advantages of using a limited set of standardized indicators and visualizations; analysis and presentation of the data in ways that are easily understood and useful to health service planners and managers; the importance of and approaches to assessing data quality; some considerations for interpretation of RHIS data. Target audience: This guidance targets workers in ministries of health as well as other organizations, including: decision-makers using RHIS data for general planning, management and review of health services; programme staff wanting to share key programme findings with a general audience; staff responsible for the analysis and presentation of health data, including analysts and monitoring and evaluation officers; health information systems staff involved in data management and data quality improvement staff of national health observatories; research institutes and academic institutions involved in RHIS data.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented disruption worldwide highlighting once again the interdependency of health and socioeconomic development, and the global lack of health systems resilience. Two years into the pandemic, most countries report sustained disruptions across service delivery platforms and health areas with a profound impact on health outcomes. The impact of these disruptions is magnified within marginalized communities and in countries experiencing protracted conflict. There is an urgent need to focus on recovery through investment in the essential public health functions (EPHFs) and the foundations of health systems with a focus on primary health care, and whole-of-government and -society engagement. The aim of this Research Topic is to gather, transfer and promote operationalization of key experiences from COVID-19 to inform global and country level recovery that better promote health; guide policy direction towards building health systems resilience; and thereby ensure economic and social prosperity. Experience with COVID-19 has demonstrated that traditional approaches to health system strengthening have failed to achieve the complementary goals of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and health security with the divide between the most vulnerable and well-off only widening. Much of what had been learned from previous experiences such as Ebola in West Africa has not been widely applied. This has left health and economic systems vulnerable to 21 st century public health challenges, ranging from conflict and natural disasters to aging demographics and rising rates of non-communicable and communicable diseases and antimicrobial resistance. These challenges require intentional focus and investment as well as whole-of-government and -society engagement with health to build health system resilience. Greater action is needed to prevent the devastating effects of war and conflict on the health of the most vulnerable. This Research Topic will convene the knowledge and practices of leaders in public health, health systems, and humanitarian and development sectors. This is to ensure lessons from COVID-19 inform the recovery agenda and promote sustainable health and socioeconomic recovery for all. Lest we forget and find ourselves again unprepared and vulnerable in the face of an even greater threat.
This report is the first of its kind to measure health service coverage and financial protection to assess countries' progress towards universal health coverage. It shows that at least 400 million people do not have access to one or more essential health services and 6% of people in low- and middle-income countries are tipped into or pushed further into extreme poverty because of health spending. Universal health coverage (UHC) means that all people receive the quality essential health services they need without being exposed to financial hardship. A significant number of countries at all levels of development are embracing the goal of UHC as the right thing to do for their citizens. It is a powerful social equalizer and contributes to social cohesion and stability. Every country has the potential to improve the performance of its health system in the main dimensions of UHC: coverage of quality services and financial protection for all. Priorities strategies and implementation plans for UHC will differ from one country to another. Enhanced and expanded monitoring of health under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) should seek to build on that experience sharpening our focus on the key health service and financial protection interventions that underpin UHC. Effective UHC tracking is central to achieving the global goals for poverty alleviation and health improvement set by the World Bank Group and WHO. Without it policymakers and decision-takers cannot say exactly where they are or set a course for where they want to go. They cannot know whether they are focussing their efforts in the right areas or whether their efforts are making a difference. Monitoring is thus fundamental to the achievement of UHC objectives. It will also be vital to the realization of the SDGs. This report is a critical step to show how monitoring progress can be done telling us what the state of coverage of interventions and financial protection is and telling us where to focus most.
