Health Financing and Economics

We aim to empower actors and increase accountability, transparency and responsiveness in health systems in support of progress towards financial protection as part of universal health coverage (UHC).

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Health economics

Technical efficiency

Technical efficiency refers to the relationship between resource inputs and outputs.

There are different types of (in)efficiency, including:

Allocative efficiency – or doing the right things (providing highest value health services for available resources)
Technical efficiency – or doing the things right (how resources are used during service provision)

An efficiently organized health sector will maximize the use of available resources, such that the least amount of resources is used to produce the most outputs.

The 2010 World Health Report suggested that between 20% and 40% of all health resources might be lost to various forms of inefficiency. Tackling inefficiency therefore has an important value for accountability: to document whether money is being spent wisely and to identify areas where it can be better spent.

In the health sector, the analysis may consider how different entities (facilities, districts or countries) compare in terms of their input-output relationship.

Under the WHO-CHOICE project, a framework for assessing technical efficiency is under the development.

Efficiency is viewed in a broader perspective, including geographic distribution of resources and acknowledging equity-efficiency trade-offs.

As countries progress towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC), there is a need for geographic information regarding the spatial distribution of available health services in relation to population health needs. The geographic location of health services has a direct impact on health outcomes within countries, by affecting how quickly patients can seek care when faced with illness and injuries.

The AccessMod tool is available for those wishing to examine the geographic accessibility of health services to the population. It allows users to calculate distance to different types of health services and the associated travel time; thereby highlighting differences in investment across geographic regions.

For more information on tools:

Tools

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