If policy-makers are to act on measures of performance, they need a clear understand- ing of the key functions that health systems have to undertake. The report defines four key functions: providing services; generating the human and physical resources that make service delivery possible; raising and pooling the resources used to pay for health care; and, most critically, the function of stewardship – setting and enforcing the rules of the game and providing strategic direction for all the different actors involved.
Undoubtedly, many of the concepts and measures used in the report require further refinement and development.To date, our knowledge about health systems has been ham- pered by the weakness of routine information systems and insufficient attention to re- search.This report has thus required a major effort to assemble data, collect new information, and carry out the required analysis and synthesis. It has also drawn on the views of a large number of respondents, within and outside WHO, concerning the interpretation of data and the relative importance of different goals.