Establishment of Reference Center and Policy Advocacy in Department of Medical Services: Information Needs

Abstract

Department of Medical Services (DMS) recognizes the importance of having information systems at all levels, both for everyday operation and for management and strategic planning, Good information leads to good policy advocacy and making recommendations based on scientific evidence (Evidence-based policy formation). This is set in DMS’s strategy of being Centers of Excellence of which being Reference Center is one of its elements that in turn leads to good policy advocacy.

The study was divided into three parts. This literature review, descriptive study was the first part aims to study the information needs to become Reference Center and advocate policy. The results from this study would be used for further study of how to develop information system to accomplish the goals.

By reviewing literatures and related documents to analyze the information needed, six categories of data and information are required for DMS to become Reference Center and advocate policy includes: epidemiology, burden of diseases, economic burden of diseases, healthcare resources (medical equipments, man power), technology assessment and quality of services. With further review of available information in these categories in Thailand, we found that the information are scattered and incomplete, especially information in economic burden of diseases, quality of care and technology assessment are the most missing (the latter is also specified in DMS mandate) so DMS has to focus more on the matter.