Strengthening health purchasing

There are three core functions within health financing – collection, pooling, and purchasing. Understanding how resources are allocated and used to purchase goods and services is needed to do more with the limited resources available and to better adapt to the changing service delivery challenges.

Resource allocation and purchasing refers to how health services are paid, including what services are being paid for, how they are paid, how much is paid, and who the purchasers and providers are. Several countries in the Western Pacific Region are moving towards more active purchasing of quality health services that is more efficient, equitable, and sustainable.

WHO is supporting countries to strengthen their purchasing mechanism, develop health financing capacity in their Ministries of Health and health insurance agencies, and generate evidence to use in the priority setting process.