Health system performance assessment (HSPA) expert workshop (2016)

Expert workshop
Copenhagen, Denmark, 12-13 April 2016

A two-day workshop on health system performance assessment (HSPA) was organized by the WHO Regional Office for Europe (the Regional Office) in April 2016. It brought together 24 external experts and WHO staff to take stock of recent developments in national and international HSPA and to obtain expert advice on the way forward in HSPA for the WHO Regional Office for Europe as part of its health system strengthening priorities 2015 to 2020.

The experts encouraged the Regional Office to reinforce its work on HSPA and to support Member States in improving accountability and transparency in health system governance. They recommended the Regional Office to strengthen its work on HSPA in three principle ways. Firstly, to enhance the Regional Office’s normative role across the Region inter alia by illustrating the links between health system performance and recent global policy commitments such as the Sustainable Development Goals, by updating its frameworks and toolkits related to HSPA, and by strengthening partnerships. Secondly, the Regional Office should act as a facilitator of knowledge exchange by supporting platforms to facilitate knowledge exchange on HSPA, by providing technical support to individual countries and by providing regular updates on country specific case studies on HSPA. Thirdly, HSPA should be linked to the ongoing support of the Regional Office to the development of health information systems since data availability is an important prerequisite for HSPA.