Applicability of WHO Responsiveness Concept to Indian Health System

Abstract

Responsiveness is concerned with meeting the legitimate non health expectations of patients. WHO concept of responsiveness has been criticized for using a single composite score for comparing responsiveness between countries. It was also suggested and proved by various studies in the past that importance given to different elements of responsiveness may vary greatly in culturally, politically, geographically different countries and hence when responsiveness is measured the elements of responsiveness should be tailored according to priority and weightage attached to each element. Also it is felt that Responsiveness, patients rights and accreditation are all concerned with giving quality service to patients, there by meeting their expectations and increasing patient satisfaction. As the domains of responsiveness, accreditation and Patients rights are slightly overlapping but are still not completely similar, there is a need to include patients rights and accreditations to responsiveness domains and make it more holistic. Scientific Peer Review Group also recommended widening the domains of responsiveness to include more areas like ethics, patients rights. In spite of recognizing these issues and after much debate, no empirical research has been undertaken. Hence there is a need to recognize what constituents of responsiveness need to be reorganized, which other elements need to be added to existing elements of responsiveness as proposed by WHO for Indian health system. Once all relevant elements are identified, a new instrument needs to be developed and validated which can measure Indian health system s responsiveness. newline