The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has introduced a new scorecard to track HIV and tuberculosis (TB) indicators as part of its Community Scorecard initiative. This move aims to strengthen community participation and improve the quality of healthcare delivery. The Community Scorecard was first introduced in 2018 as a tool to obtain quarterly feedback from communities and improve health service delivery within Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) zones.
The Community Scorecard Project Focal Person at the Ghana Health Service, Aseye Kpodotsi, announced the expansion during a Zoom engagement with journalists, public health nurses, and officials from district health directorates. The scorecard is not a stand-alone platform but part of a broader suite of health scorecards developed with support from various partners. The platform currently hosts several scorecards, including those for malaria, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health, nutrition, and neglected tropical diseases.
The new HIV and TB Scorecard tracks selected indicators from the two programs, providing another mechanism for assessing health service performance. According to Ms. Kpodotsi, the Community Scorecard focuses on nine client-related quality-of-care indicators, including female participation. Unlike the Community Scorecard, other scorecards are fed with routine service-delivery data collected from health facilities across the country. All scorecards are hosted on the Scorecard.org platform, which provides national and regional averages for the various indicators.
The system is expected to strengthen data-driven decision-making, promote accountability, and contribute to improvements in the quality and responsiveness of health services. The platform allows users to view performance at a glance, with national averages highlighted for Ghana alongside regional averages. Users can drill down by specific indicators for detailed analysis and regional comparison. This will enable health managers to identify areas requiring improvement and make informed decisions.
The GHS is scaling up implementation of the Community Scorecard to strengthen community participation in health service delivery. The project seeks to train more actors at the zonal level and extend the scorecard approach to hospitals and vulnerable groups. The expansion aims to give communities and vulnerable populations a stronger voice in assessing health services and identifying areas requiring improvement. Health managers will be expected to provide quarterly support for implementing action plans developed in response to concerns and ratings raised by communities.
The media has been urged to amplify community voices and strengthen accountability in healthcare delivery. Dr. Charity Binka, Executive Secretary of the African Media and Malaria Research Network (AMMREN), emphasized the importance of the media in amplifying community voices and strengthening accountability. She noted that improving health services required not only effective systems but also sustained communication, public engagement, and access to accurate information. The media can help strengthen transparency, accountability, and public confidence in the health system through responsible and evidence-based reporting.
The Community Scorecard project is being implemented with financial and technical support from several partners, including the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA), Hope for Future Generation (HFFG), and the West Africa Program to Combat AIDS and STI (WAPCAS). The project aims to result in the training of regional, district, and hospital-level staff to operate and analyze the scorecards for decision-making. Five key outcomes are expected, including the empowerment of health committee members to lead quarterly scoring sessions and the active participation of women’s groups in the scoring and action-planning process.
Key points
- The Ghana Health Service has expanded its Community Scorecard initiative to include a new scorecard for tracking HIV and TB indicators.
- The scorecard aims to strengthen community participation and improve the quality of healthcare delivery.
- The media has been urged to amplify community voices and strengthen accountability in healthcare delivery.
