Strengthening health-system emergency preparedness. Toolkit for assessing health-system capacity for crisis management. Part 1. User manual (2012)

2012, vi + 87 pages
ISBN 978 92 890 0261 5

In preparing for health crises, health systems face the prospect of multiple hazards, limited resources for dealing with them and high expectations of their performance. With the European Commission Directorate-General for Health and Consumers, the WHO Regional Office has developed a toolkit to assess health-system capacity for managing crises.

This standardized toolkit, pilot tested in several countries since 2007, helps countries assess the capacity of their health systems to respond to various threats and identify gaps. It breaks down the complex crisis-preparedness process into manageable units, thus enabling a ministry of health to:

• record and classify information regarding its capacity to manage crises;
• establish responsibility for specific tasks;
• determine the relationship between those involved in these tasks (partners, sectors, disciplines) with the aim of synergizing resources;
• identify shortcomings and gaps; and
• monitor progress.

It provides instructions on how to carry out an assessment; suggestions on the selection of assessment sites; recommendations on follow-up of the assessment and development of a plan of action; information about the essential attributes to identify and indicator-related questions to ask; and a list of possible sources of the information required to assess the essential attributes.

The assessment form is available as a companion volume.