Dr Rocco Friebel

This course is available on the MPA in Data Science for Public Policy and MSc in Health Data Science. This course is not available as an outside option to students on other programmes. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process. For information on controlled access courses, including eligibility, application processes, deadlines, and departmental contact details, please refer to the Controlled Access Courses webpage.

This course is first-come, first-served for those with it on their regulations. It is not available as an outside option.

Students will not be permitted to take both HP402 Measuring Health Systems and HP434 Methods and Data for Health Systems Performance Assessment courses. 

This course aims to present a framework to discuss the opportunities and challenges with performance measurement in health care, examine the various dimensions and levels of health system performance, identify and apply the measurement instruments and analytic tools needed, and examine the implications of these issues for policy makers and regulators. Lectures generally focus on measuring health system performance in high-income countries but draw on the experience of other countries where relevant. 

After taking this course student will be able to:

1. understand the complexity of different health systems

2. appreciate the challenges, approached and opportunities in performance measurement in four dimensions; population health, patient outcomes, equity, quality adn appropriateness of care, and productivity

3. be familiar with the construction of key indicators used by health systems and providers to measure population health, patient outcomes, equity, quality of care and productivity

4. apply different methodologies used for risk adjustment, to develop composite measures, and to measure attribution and causality

5. identify key issues relevant to policy makers relating to policy evaluation using measures of performance 

15 hours of lectures and 13.5 hours of seminars in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

Students will be expected to produce 1 piece of coursework in the WT.

• Papanicolas I, Smith P (Eds) Health System Performance Comparison: An Agenda for Policy, Information and Research. Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2013;
• P Smith, E Mossialos, I Papanicolas S. Leatherman (Eds), Performance measurement for health system improvement: experiences, challenges and prospects. Cambridge University Press, 2010.
• Institute of Medicine, Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century. Washington, DC, National Academies Press, 2001;
• OECD, Measuring up: improving health system performance in OECD countries. Paris: OECD, 2002. World Health Organization (WHO), (2000)
• The world health report 2000:Health systems: Improving performance, Geneva: WHO Publications

Presentation (25%).

Essay (75%, 3000 words).