Introduction
Community quality of care scorecard tools are social accountability mechanisms that bring community members together from diverse sectors and social-economic backgrounds, ages and genders to provide quarterly feedback on quality of care feedback.
These community scorecard tools are used to:
- collect feedback from community members to assess the quality of care
- increase accountability
- inform joint actions to improve local health services enhance community ownership and engagement
Quality of care indicators
Each community scorecard tool is made up of several indicators used to assess the quality of health services offered at the local health facility or catchment area.
Examples include the:
- availability of medicines
- cleanliness of the facility
- time a patient had to wait to receive care
Community scorecard tool process
Regularly (such as once every 3 months), members of the community are invited to:
- share their experiences of using local health facilities
- score the indicators used to assess the local health facility’s quality of care
- create joint action plans to address the issues identified through the scoring session
Community members, health workers, partners and government officials work together to carry out the actions to resolve problems identified in the scorecard tool process. In many cases, communities find local resources to carry out the actions.
Helping deliver improved quality of care
In September 2022, the World Health Organization and the Quality of Care Network secretariat launched an implementation guide for improving quality of care. They highlight community scorecard tools as a key tool for stakeholder engagement and improving quality of care.
Community scorecards … are useful platforms that allows for meaningful participation of communities in improving quality of care.
Improving quality of care for maternal, newborn and child health, World Health Organization
Countries using community scorecard tools
We have helped several countries across Africa introduce community quality of care scorecard tools. Some countries also share their scorecard tools publicly on the Scorecard Hub. We are also working with several other countries who wish to start using these scorecard tools.
Support we provide to countries
We help countries strengthen and institutionalise their scorecard tools to promote transparent data sharing. This includes:
- linking to the national health management information system (such as DHIS2)
- sharing scorecard tools and best practices on the Scorecard Hub
- helping to train a range of stakeholders including politicians, community health workers and community leaders
Contact us
The ALMA Scorecard Hub provides further information about community scorecard tools and how to create a new community scorecard tool.
Please contact us if you would like:
- to learn more about community scorecard tools
- support for creating a new community scorecard tool
- support improving an existing community scorecard tool