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. 2017 Aug 31:75:50.
doi: 10.1186/s13690-017-0221-9. eCollection 2017.

Using the World Health Organization health system building blocks through survey of healthcare professionals to determine the performance of public healthcare facilities

Tsegahun Manyazewal  1
Affiliations

Using the World Health Organization health system building blocks through survey of healthcare professionals to determine the performance of public healthcare facilities

Tsegahun Manyazewal. Arch Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Acknowledging the health system strengthening agenda, the World Health Organization (WHO) has formulated a health systems framework that describes health systems in terms of six building blocks. This study aimed to determine the current status of the six WHO health system building blocks in public healthcare facilities in Ethiopia.

Methods: A quantitative, cross-sectional study was conducted in five public hospitals in central Ethiopia which were in a post-reform period. A self-administered, structured questionnaire which covered the WHO's six health system building blocks was used to collect data on healthcare professionals who consented. Data was analyzed using IBM SPSS version 20.

Results: The overall performance of the public hospitals was 60% when weighed against the WHO building blocks which, in this procedure, needed a minimum of 80% score. For each building block, performance scores were: information 53%, health workforce 55%, medical products and technologies 58%, leadership and governance 61%, healthcare financing 62%, and service delivery 69%. There existed a significant difference in performance among the hospitals (p < .001).

Conclusion: The study proved that the WHO's health system building blocks are useful for assessing the process of strengthening health systems in Ethiopia. The six blocks allow identifying different improvement opportunities in each one of the hospitals. There was no contradiction between the indicators of the WHO building blocks and the health sustainable development goal (SDG) objectives. However, such SDG objectives should not be a substitute for strategies to strengthen health systems.

Keywords: Ethiopia; Health development goals; Health system; Health system strengthening; World Health Organization.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study was granted an ethical clearance certificate from the Higher Degrees Committee of the Department of Health Studies, University of South Africa, and the Research and Technology Transfer Core-process of the Addis Ababa City Administration Health Bureau.

Written informed consent was developed for each respondent to read and sign before moving on to fill-in the questionnaire.

Consent for publication

The study did not include details, images, or videos relating to individual participants, thus consent for publications were not required.

Competing interests

The author declares that she has no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The WHO Health Systems Framework [11]
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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