Strategic Health Purchasing and Health System Performance in Nigeria

Abstract

Purchasing has been adopted by many countries as a mechanism to achieve greater efficiency and improved responsiveness of services to patient demands. This study examined the effects of strategic health purchasing on health system performance in Nigeria. The data for the study was collected using a purposive sampling survey in the Akure metropolis. The results indicated a positive relationship between health system performance and purchasing strategy, payment mechanism and service utilisers with the regression coefficients of 0.30, 0.16 and 0.33. This implied that purchasing strategy, payment mechanism and service utilisers are likely to improve health system performance. The results also revealed a positive relationship between each of the health system performance measurement dimensions (life expectancy, the performance of different areas of health services, distribution of access to health facilities, fairness of health financing, prompt attention to medical needs and purchasing strategy, providers payment mechanism and service utilisers. It was concluded that health system performance can be improved by the implementation of strategic health purchasing. Therefore, paying for health care services should be made strategic and rules relating to auditing and accountability should be made more effective.