Development strategy for the local health security fund in national health security office region 10, Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand

Abstract

Local health security funds or Community Health Fund are an innovation introduced to achieve greater local government involvement in Thailand’s Universal Health Coverage and is an outcome of decentralizing power to local administrations and serves as a health fund for people in local communities. The fund’s budget is subsidized by the National Health Security Office which the contributes to a fund with a condition that the local government provides matching funding, but it also found that most funds run by fund administrative committee of Local Administrative Organizations had significant weakness such as their lacked strategies for deploying funds, had taken few steps to promote cooperation among local health care providers and lacked systematic mechanisms for assessing available resources and health informatic system. This study aimed to develop a strategy for agreeing and implementing the Local Health Security Fund in a northeastern Thai provinces. It applied mixed research methodology to investigate fund strategies and development models. The quantitative study component involved a questionnaire completed by 720 members serving on funds administrative committees from 270 fund. The results of study identified six strategies employed by existing funds : 1) Strengthening and developing the capacity of fund committee.