The Universal Access with Explicit Guarantees (AUGE) benefit plan initially defined a basic plan for social health insurance in 2006, consisting of guaranteed and explicit treatments for 56 priority health conditions. In 2010, it was expanded to 69 and subsequently...
Forgone healthcare and financial burden due to out-of-pocket payments in Bangladesh
The health financing system in Bangladesh is underfunded, forcing the households to incur OOPE to avail health care services. As a result, around 16% households incurred financial catastrophe in 2011, 5% non-poor households became poor, and 7% of Bangladeshi...
Health care utilization and expenditure inequities in India: Benefit incidence analysis
Health systems often pick up inequity in the distribution of health benefits due to competing demand and supply factors by various actors. Health care in India is provided by a vast network of public, private-for-profit, charitable and NGO facilities. Typically,...
The Effects of Health Purchasing Reforms on Equity, Access, Quality of Care, and Financial Protection in Kenya: A Narrative Review
Kenya's health purchasing reforms improved access and financial protection but face challenges like service awareness and delayed payments, requiring coordinated interventions. This review examines health purchasing reforms in Kenya and their impact on health system...
Virtual Launch of the Health Systems and Reform Journal Special Issue: Making Progress on Strategic Health Purchasing in Africa
The Strategic Purchasing Africa Resource Centre (SPARC)—a resource hub hosted by Amref Health Africa with technical support from Results for Development (R4D)— co-created the Strategic Health Purchasing Progress Tracking Framework with eleven technical partners, and...
Zimbabwe health sector expenditure review 2022
The Zimbabwe 2022 public expenditure review (PER) for health examines the recent evolution of public health expenditures in Zimbabwe and assesses opportunities for improving the efficiency, effectiveness, and equity. PER is important as it helps to uncover gaps in...
Strategic health purchasing in Nigeria: Exploring the evidence on health system and service delivery improvements
Global commitment to achieving universal health coverage (UHC) has led to increasing attention on health purchasing. Purchasing is one of the key health financing functions that provides the critical link between resources mobilized for health and the effective...
Costa Rica Universal Health Coverage Assessment
This preliminary assessment of the Costa Rican health system focuses on the goal of universal health coverage, with a particular focus on the financing system and related aspects of provision. The data provides insights into the extent of financial protection and...
General Budget of Honduras 2022, prioritizes purchase of vaccines and education
The draft of the General Budget of the Republic for the fiscal year 2022 prioritized an increase of funds to the Secretariat of Health to face the purchase of vaccines (from COVID-19) and the hiring of health personnel, detailed the...
Is performance-based financing a pathway to strategic purchasing in sub-Saharan Africa? a synthesis of the evidence
In this study, the authors examine the question of whether and how PBF programs in sub-Saharan Africa influence strategic purchasing more broadly within the country’s health financing arrangements. Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa have implemented...
Examining healthcare purchasing arrangements for strategic purchasing in Nigeria: a case study of the Imo state healthcare system
Purchasing is a critical function of health financing which links resources mobilized in the health sector to effective delivery of quality healthcare services. Strategic purchasing therefore can help a country improve financial risk protection for the vulnerable...
Households forgoing healthcare as a measure of financial risk protection: an application to Liberia
This paper explores financial risk associated with access to healthcare services in Liberia. It also proposes a method to complement the standard financial risk protection measures in the WHO/World Bank global monitoring framework for Universal Health Coverage (UHC)....
Strengths and weaknesses of strategic health purchasing for Universal Health Coverage in Rwanda
Rwanda in part attributes its progress toward Universal Health Coverage (UHC) to the implementation of Community Based Health Insurance (CBHI). Some evidence shows that in Rwanda, CBHI has led to increases in health service utilization and better financial protection...
Strategic Health Purchasing in Nigeria: Investigating Governance and Institutional Capacities within Federal Tax-Funded Health Schemes and the Formal Sector Social Health Insurance Programme
Strategic purchasing has the potential of increasing equity in access to quality services and ensuring financial protection through deliberate effort to purchase services with the best value for money. This study examines the purchasing arrangements in schemes funded...
Strategic health purchasing progress mapping: a spotlight on Ghana’s National Health Insurance Scheme
Since the introduction of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in 2003, the enrolment rate has increased to 40% of the population and has significantly contributed to increased health service utilization and decreasing out-of-pocket payments and catastrophic...