Impact Evaluation Study of West Bengal Health System Development Project

Agency : Department of Health & Family Welfare, Government of West Bengal

The purpose of the study was to assess the impact of some of the key activities carried out by the State Health System Development Project ' II (SHSDP-II) in West Bengal during 1996-2004. The impact in the present context was assessed on the basis of four dimensions: (1) Hospital dimension, which reflects hospitals' performance (process, output and outcome indicators), (2) Community's dimension, which reflects community's perception regarding change in accessibility, utilisation, quality, and equity of health care services, (3) Other stakeholders' dimension, which represents the perceptions of other key stakeholders, such as project managers, health officials, etc. who did not directly provide services but were closely associated with the project implementation process, with respect to achievement, bottlenecks and future needs of the project, and (4) Policy dimension, which involves an analysis of impact of policy directions proposed in the Staff Appraisal Report (SAR) of the project.

Primary data from hospitals and community were collected from four regions of the state. Except the Sunderbans, one district hospital (DH), two to three sub-divisional / state general hospitals (SDH / SGH), and four rural hospitals (RH) were selected from each region. For Sunderbans, two Block Primary Health Centres (BPHC) and four Primary Health Centres (PHC) were selected. In total, 29 health facilities (23 hospitals, 2 BPHCs, and 4 PHCs) made the sample. Taken together, these hospitals spread over 11 districts of the State.

The study reflected positive trends in all hospital output indicators. Strengths and weaknesses in the management processes at the hospital level were identified and a set of recommendations for future directions was outlined.


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