Performance Reporting by Public Health Insurance Schemes (iCHF)

Background

In May 2018, the Government of Tanzania endorsed the national roll-out of the improved Community Health Fund (iCHF) for providing health insurance protection primarily for the rural population and the informal sector, which as of August 2020, covers about 1.3 million people in Tanzania. To measure and objectively compare the performance, it is essential to establish standard criteria. This is needed to track the performance across years, undertake comparisons and establish benchmarks. The Swiss government-funded Health Promotion and Systems Strengthening (HPSS) project support PORALG in developing iCHF Performance Scorecard to address these needs.

Methodology

An approach to performance management that is increasingly applied to the public sector is the use of a Balanced Scorecard . This approach ensures emphasis on aspects prioritized by different stakeholders leading to a more balanced measurement and assessing performance. The scorecard attempts to take a balanced approach by developing SMART indicators from different perspectives, namely clients, operational efficiency, and financial sustainability. Indicators for each category were developed along with clear definitions of data sources to present easily digestible facts on how schemes perform. The use of the Insurance Management Information System (IMIS) simplifies calculating the standard performance indicators.

Conclusions

iCHF is responsible for communicating its performance in a timely and reliable manner. The scorecard is to be published on an annual basis on the website (http://www.chf-iliyoboreshwa.or.tz/). Our presentation will describe the approach taken to develop such a performance scorecard, outline the rationale for the development of the indicators, present the results on the first-year performance and discuss its implications.