This paper is written to give more insight information about the general benefit of monitoring. It focuses on the monitoring of health services relating to early childhood development in the cases of Germany and the United Kingdom.

The monitoring of health services provides information for performance management and for evidence-based policy-making. Monitoring information can facilitate performance management, identifying areas of concern and means to improve outcomes on health services. It can also inform policy decisions by supporting evidence-based policies. The paper describes three criteria that are seen as critical for the development of routine national health data collection:

• a national framework is needed that sets out a coherent approach to data content and its use;
• a framework setting out clear roles and responsibilities increases data quality and value. This provides up-to-date and comparable information, and identifies trends and areas of concern;
• health monitoring information should be well catalogued and made publicly available.    

The article notes that when data is routinely collected it can be used to contribute to debates at the national level to strengthen policy decisions regarding health services for early childhood development.

Bibliographic Details

Author: Sandra Eismann

Publisher: (2009) UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre:Florence

Right to Health

The Eight Step Approach is a comprehensive HRIA framework that provides a cyclic approach to policy development and project management. This report covers the following steps:

STEP 7: Monitoring

STEP 8: Evaluation

Online Source(s)

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Language	Format	Source Title
English	PDF document	Routine data collection and monitoring of helath services relating to early child development; A two-nation review study