In the context of health systems, purchasing refers to the allocation of pooled funds to providers of services on behalf of a population. The World Health Report 2000 pushed forward the idea that countries should move beyond passive purchasing, where the purchaser follows a predetermined budget or simply pays bills. Instead, more strategic forms of purchasing are more appropriate, where the purchaser continuously searches for the best ways to maximize health system performance by deciding which interventions should be purchased, how, and from whom (World Health Assembly 53 2000).
As part of the Strategic Purchasing for Primary Health Care (SP4PHC) project, ThinkWell undertook a landscaping exercise to explore and document health purchasing policies and practices in Uganda. The team conducted a detailed desk review and interviewed key informants to answer the following questions: Who purchases health services, and from whom? What mechanisms are used to purchase services? What services are purchased? Insights from this review are informing the project’s ongoing work to support strategic purchasing reforms in the country.
ThinkWell produced this report under the Strategic Purchasing for Primary Health Care (SP4PHC) grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.