PAHO Boosts Health Steering Role

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has launched a new strategy to help strengthen the role of health authorities in the context of health reform.

In many countries, health sector reform has brought significant changes in the role of ministries of health, away from being providers of services toward a "stewardship" and regulatory role. The change has presented new challenges for health authorities throughout the region.

PAHO's Health Policies and Systems Unit has developed a project aimed at measuring and strengthening what it terms the "steering role functions" that remain the chief responsibility of government health authorities. These include leadership in health policymaking, regulatory oversight, ensuring health insurance coverage and harmonizing health services delivery. The goal of the project is to determine how well health authorities are performing these functions and to pinpoint areas that need strengthening.

In a recent pilot test in El Salvador, PAHO experts set up working groups with participants from the public and private health sector, academia and nongovernmental organizations. Each completed a 168-question survey assessing the performance of their country's health authorities in each functional area. Based on the results, PAHO will offer training workshops throughout Central America beginning in March on how to use the assessment method, and by the end of the year, the project is expected to expand to member countries regionwide.