Technical Note
INSTITUTIONAL INADEQUACIES: DATA COLLECTION ON HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS IN PUNJAB
INDUSTRY :-
AREA :BUSINESS GOVT/INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY
ORGANIZATION :-
LENGTH :18
LUMS No :16-304-2015-2
PUBLICATION YEAR : 2015
ABSTRACT:
This note describes in detail how the Punjab Government and major health sector regulators collect data on the operations of individual and institutional health providers. The Punjab Government has multiple arrangements for collecting data. The largest and the most comprehensive one is the District Health Information System (DHIS), which regularly generates data on 83 clinical and non-clinical indicators about the working of primary and secondary healthcare facilities. However, the Government does not seem to be satisfied with data accuracy and has launched parallel programmes to collect data on a subset of indicators used in DHIS. Another major regulator is the Punjab Healthcare Commission, which collects data on health establishments with an indoor capacity of 50 beds or more. In addition, there are four industry organisations that collect data on practitioners of allopathic medicine and dentists, practitioners of eastern medicine, homeopaths and nurses. The note identifies several gaps in these data collection arrangements.