Health accounts are a crucial tool to systematically monitor the financial resources that countries allocate to health and to inform evidence‑based policy making. An appropriate institutionalisation of health accounts is a vital step to ensure that data on health expenditure and financing of high quality are regularly produced applying the System of Health Accounts concepts for the purpose of international comparisons. In this context, the governance of the production process, the technical aspects of the production process and the dissemination of the results including their use to inform policy making are crucial domains.
This webinar is joinly organised with WHO and will present and discuss the many factors related to characteristics of the health system, the health data information landscape or administrative cultures and rules that play a role in determining how health accounts could be best made permanent and ingrained – that is institutionalised – in a country.
Widespread use of health accounts to inform health policy is clearly a key objective of health accounts institutionalisation, beyond the production itself. Strategies to engage with staff in health ministries, parliamentarians, civil society representatives and the different stakeholders such as health professional organisations, insurers or health providers can contribute to an increased policy use which in turn can trigger demand for more detailed health expenditure analysis, reinforcing a positive feedback loop.