State Health Accounts

Abstract

The attempts of developing Health Accounts are on the learning curve in most of the developing countries. Contrary to this most of the European countries and few countries in the American continent have produced health accounts. Though India did produce its Health Accounts very recently, more distance needs to be covered at the state level. Health Accounts are considered to be more useful as a policy tool for bringing in corrective measures as regards the financing of disease specific interventions. The conceptual clarity of developing such accounts are also in infancy in most of the developing countries due to the fact that the OECD model of System of Health Accounts (SHA) as well as the Producers’ Manual of Health Accounts (WHO, USAID & WORLD BANK) cannot be easily adopted and adapted in the context of developing economies. In this background the study assumes significance due to the fact that it would be an in-house and pioneering exercise to develop and understand the conceptual as well empirical issues in developing health accounts. The study would be useful for the academicians and the managers of health sector in the years to come. The lessons learnt would be useful in scaling up such experiments both at the state and national level. Health Accounts would provide broad indicators for policy makers just like the information that emanates from the National Income Accounts. Tracking down of Actors, Activities and Transactions in the health sector would help us to use the scarce resources for better governance of the health sector.