On World Health Day, 7 April 2018, WHO calls on world leaders to take concrete steps towards universal health coverage (UHC). This means ensuring that everyone, everywhere, can access quality health services without facing financial hardship, as set out in the Sustainable Development Goals.
In the WHO European Region, some countries do well in meeting UHC goals, but all can do better to secure financial protection, especially for poorer people.
Since 2013, Georgia has been making significant improvements in health financing policy by extending population entitlement to publicly financed health care and gradually increasing public funding of the health system. The Social Services Agency (SSA) acts as a single purchasing agency for the health sector, an approach in line with European and global best practices.
Evidence shows that these reforms have led to progress in meeting the goal of UHC in Georgia: they have increased access to health services and improved financial protection in areas targeted for expanded coverage.
Since 2013, the SSA has introduced new systems and methods to manage the flow of funds to providers. The Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia has introduced several reforms to strengthen the capacity of the SSA to strategically purchase health care for the population. Remarkable progress has been made so far, but more can be done.
In response, WHO/Europe has scaled up its support to Georgia. Through the UHC Partnership, supported by the European Union, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and WHO, it is providing technical assistance to the Ministry to strengthen strategic purchasing.
In 2017, this technical assistance focused on assessing the organizational capacity of the SSA to identify key areas for collaboration. In 2018, it aims to further develop the capacity of the SSA, focusing on 3 key areas:
- preparing a strategy for strategic purchasing and providing support to strengthen the SSA’s capacity to implement it;
- supporting the implementation of diagnosis-related groups to enhance transparency in provider payment and support strategic purchasing; and
- designing best-practice patient pathways for selected priority clinical areas and developing tools to support their implementation.