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Health Facilities Enhancement Program needs serious improvement—PIDS

MAKATI CITY - A study by state think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies urges the Department of Health to address serious flaws and challenges in the implementation of its Health Facilities Enhancement Program (HFEP).

The research team of Oscar F. Picazo, Ida Marie T. Pantig, and Nina Ashley O. dela Cruz released their findings in a policy note titled, “More than infrastructure and equipment: Process evaluation of the Health Facilities Enhancement Program”. Their evaluation of the DOH program revealed gaps in implementing practices in medical infrastructure.
                   
The problematic areas they identified included service delivery, commissioned contracting, funding for building facilities, coordination, and facility licensing. Addressing the problems in these areas, urged the authors, will help improve the management of the HFEP.

The key to a better HFEP is improving coordination at all levels. It may also help to establish a manual operations for the entire project.
 
The authors also recommended establishing a civilian, health sector version of a SWAT team to address extraordinary situations of specific technical nature
 
Commissioned contracting would also eliminate the fragmentation. The protraction of deliverables would be reduced if the incremental, multiyear infrastructure funding is replaced by a “finish one-at-a-time” funding scheme.

“DOH, as financier, will only be dealing with fewer contractors, and the commissioned contractors will take on the responsibility of construction monitoring,” the authors added. (PIDS)

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