Estonia health system performance assessment. 2009 snapshot

This report presents the main findings of an assessment of the performance of the Estonian Health System, carried out jointly by the WHO Regional Office for Europe and the Ministry of Social Affairs of Estonia in 2008 and 2009. This assessment was part of the biennial collaborative agreement between the Ministry of Social Affairs of Estonia and the Regional Office. The initial objectives of this evaluation were to: present international evidence supporting the use of health system performance measurement for performance assessment and improvement; propose an initial set of performance indicators with related findings; and put forward ideas about how to strengthen accountability in order to stimulate performance improvement.

A working group was set up by the Ministry of Social Affairs to develop this first health system performance assessment report. It produced a performance assessment framework based on prior work on health system strengthening, selected a balanced set of performance indicators reflecting the performance measurement framework; collected the data and calculated the performance indicators; and interpreted the results with support from national and international experts. Data collection took place during the first semester of 2009.

An executive summary is enclosed in this report, as well as an annex presenting potential performance indicators to be collected in the future.