District Health Barometer - Collection and categorisation of indicators

South Africa has recently begun to use 7 indicator "stages" as seen in the new Provincial Strategic Planning (PSP) & Early Warning System (EWS). These are:

1. Input indicators (e.g. funding/expenditure, staffing)
2. Process indicators (e.g. DOTS coverage, completeness of data, management meetings held with minutes of decisions taken)
3. Efficiency indicators (e.g. workload, average length of stay, expenditure per patient day)
4. Quality indicators (% facilities with piped water, response time, waiting time)
5. Output indicators (utilisation rate, Immunisation coverage)
6. Outcome indicators (Multi-drug resistance TB rate, % of HIV+ under management, patient satisfaction)
7. Impact indicators (Maternal/infant mortality, case fatality, life expectancy)

Within each category that it is decided to include in the Barometer it will be necessary to prioritise indicators for identified areas of health service delivery. For example, of all the possible input indicators, indicators that can monitor personnel flows and performance are likely to be a high priority because of the centrality of human resources to providing high quality services, and the large proportion of the budget consumed by personnel. However outcome and impact indicators are also important, even though they can be influenced by non-health factors, since these provide the ultimate measure of whether health system performance is resulting in the desired health outcomes.

Keywords	This Item is associated with the Following Keywords: District Health Barometer (DHB), HealthLink.
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