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The
Health Sector Reform Technical Assistance Project (HSRTAP) of the
Management Sciences for Health HSRTAP is USAID’s response to the request for technical assistance that was sought by former DOH Secretary Alberto Romualdez, to support the implementation of the Health Sector Reform Agenda (HSRA). HSRA was officially launched in mid-1999 as a flagship program of the DOH to address inequities and inequalities in the provision and financing of health services. HSRTAP started in June 2000, and closed in November 2002. The project’s main purpose was to provide various forms of technical assistance to the DOH, the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), and selected local government units (LGU) to enable them to implement hospital and drug management reforms, strengthen local health systems, and expand the coverage and benefit spending of the National Health Insurance Program (NHIP). There
were four reform areas that HSRTAP supported: social health insurance,
drug management systems, local health systems development, and hospital
reform. The
project also worked with the DOH, PhilHealth and local government units
concerned to develop seven provinces and one city into convergence sites,
or localities where all the five major health reform components are
implemented in an integrated fashion. These sites showcase the systems
improvements, such as health care financing, that can be brought about by
health reforms. These include: the enrollment of indigents under NHIP and
the provision of the outpatient benefit package through a capitation mode
of payment; the organization of inter-local heath zones that can greatly
strengthen the local delivery of health services; vastly improved systems
for drug selection and procurement; and implementation by local hospitals
of programs to improve management systems and quality of services in order
to increase revenues, and the adoption of measures to allow them to retain
and utilize revenues generated. The
DOH is targeting the development of 64 convergence sites (four per region)
by 2004 in order to generate a momentum for health reforms that will be
difficult to reverse. The project assisted the DOH and PhilHealth meet
this program target by developing capacities at the central and regional
levels, and the formulation of procedural manuals and other tools for
organizing convergence sites and implementing the five major components of
the reform program. HSRTAP’s
technical staff consisted of a health insurance advisor who also served as
chief of party, a health reform technical coordinator, a hospital reform
manager, a social health insurance reform manager, a drug management
system manager, a local health systems development manager, and four
technical program assistants (one for each of the four reform areas that
HSRTAP supported). The activities undertaken under this project were all purely in the nature of technical assistance, and were undertaken in support of the implementation of the Health Sector Reform Agenda. Technical assistance was provided either directly through the project’s technical staff, or though the hiring of short-term consultants. In addition, the project financed health reform-related training activities, workshops and conferences, inter-local government unit observation visits, one foreign study tour, and the printing and dissemination of technical reports brochures, and IEC materials. These technical assistance activities were undertaken primarily for and with the DOH, PhilHealth and the eight convergence LGUs. |
Technical Reports
Reform Areas
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