Abstract
BackgroundThe strategy of health policy has been changed for improving the performances to meeting the increasing healthcare demands. However, limited evidences were found to prove that the bundled payment was valid for service delivering in public sector. This study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of a bundled policy on strengthening the county-village communication and improving the quality of chronic disease management.MethodsThis is a retrospective cohort study using the data collected in 2011, 2012 and 2014 from the Rural Health Development Project in China. The policy intervention included performance-related contract with health facilities, developing technical guideline for doctors and nurses, routine monitoring of performance, and efforts to increase public awareness about the services. There were two intervention counties in Henan Province, China, while one county with similar characteristics in Henan was selected as control. Funding allocation, work load and salary for health care workers, volume of township-to-village technical assistance were reported before and after the policy was implemented. Our study also examined the policy impacts on improving treatment outcomes of diabetes and hypertension care.ResultsThere were substantial increases in the provision of the basic package of services including 96.6 % of patients with hypertension, 91.2 % of patients with diabetes under the health management system. After the intervention, there were 34.3 % (hypertension) and 42.0 % (diabetes) increase in regular follow-up visit rates, 24.6 and 17.2 % increase in blood pressure and blood glucose control rates, respectively. The family health records system covered 96 % of the rural families. Technical assistance between township health centres and village clinics were enhanced. Compared with baseline, the monthly training meeting and field supervision & guidance between township health centres and village clinics increased 1.0 meeting, 1.5 field visits, respectively, while the increases in the control county were only 0.3 meeting and 0.3 field visits. At the end of this study, 93.8 % of health workers achieved their performance goals. More patients were referred to appropriate levels of care.ConclusionThis bundled policy intervention effectively improved rural health care delivery. The result of our study can be used for local governments to implement performance-based health system management in developing country.
Highlights
The strategy of health policy has been changed for improving the performances to meeting the increasing healthcare demands
One approach that has gained a lot of attention is the use of contracts linking payment of health service providers to their achievement of health care delivery targets [3,4,5]
This paper presents an intervention in Henan Province in China aimed at increasing access to the Basic Public Health Services (BPHS, similar to primary health care in US) [10, 11] through a combination of performance-related contracts with health facilities, routine monitoring of performance and efforts to increase public awareness about the services to which they are entitled
Summary
The strategy of health policy has been changed for improving the performances to meeting the increasing healthcare demands. During the past two to three decades there has been a dramatic spread of health reform in many low and middleincome countries In some cases this has been associated with a change in economic model and rapid economic growth; in other cases it has been associated with prolonged economic crisis, deterioration in the performance of the public sector and the increasing importance of informal markets. This phenomenon has stimulated interest in government strategies for influencing these markets to improve their performance in meeting health needs [1, 2]. The international record for pay for performance is growing and yet mixed in both OECD countries and transition economies [9]
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