Tracking Health Resources Using National Health Accounts

Maina and Mwai describe the policy utility of National Health Accounts (NHA) tool for tracking health spending especially for countries aiming to achieve Universal Health Coverage. They trace the history of health resource tracking and the introduction of NHA based on the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development’s System of Health Accounts methodology. They describe data collection for and preparation of NHA which disaggregate expenditures by four dimensions: sources of financing, financing agents, types of health-care providers and types of health-care functions. The authors illustrate the process with their experience in developing NHA for Kenya, and demonstrate how to create sub-accounts for specific diseases. Finally, they describe use of NHA data for international comparison and highlight challenges in collecting and using NHA data.