Assessing Health System Performance: Proof of Concept for a HSPA Dashboard of Key Indicators is a joint WHO Europe, OECD and European Observatory policy brief published in 2024. It proposes a policy-friendly dashboard using a limited set of “tracer indicators” to help decision-makers identify weaknesses, investigate their causes and monitor health-system reform.
Key insights:
Health system assessments often contain too many indicators, making it difficult for policymakers to identify priorities.
The report recommends starting with practical policy questions and selecting a smaller set of relevant tracer indicators.
The proposed dashboard focuses on four areas: the health workforce, digital health, people-centredness, and access and quality.
Workforce indicators include staff density and geographic distribution, graduate numbers, worker migration, ageing, skill mix, job satisfaction and burnout.
Digital-health indicators assess governance, infrastructure, electronic health records, telehealth, e-prescribing and digital literacy.
People-centredness can be measured through patient participation in care decisions, public involvement in policymaking and trust in the health system.
Unmet healthcare needs and preventable or treatable mortality are proposed as high-level indicators of access and quality.
Tracer indicators can signal systemic problems but cannot explain their full causes; they must be interpreted within the broader national context.
The report calls for stronger data systems, better disaggregation and comparability, regular indicator review and closer collaboration among WHO, OECD, the EU and the European Observatory.
