The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has expanded its national health scorecard platform to include a new scorecard for tracking HIV and tuberculosis (TB) indicators as part of efforts to strengthen community participation and improve the quality of healthcare delivery.
The development forms part of the broader Community Scorecard initiative, a GHS tool introduced in 2018 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, participated by Nana Yaw Asiamah of Bubune FM on Wednesday, September 30.
Ms. Kpodotsi explained that the Community Scorecard was not a stand-alone platform but formed part of a broader suite of health scorecards developed with support from various partners.
The platform currently hosts the Malaria Scorecard, which monitors malaria indicators; the Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health (RMNCAH) Scorecard, which tracks the continuum of care; the Nutrition Scorecard; and the Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) Scorecard.
She said the latest addition, the HIV and TB Scorecard, tracks selected indicators from the two programmes, providing another mechanism for assessing health service performance.
According to Ms. Kpodotsi, the Community Scorecard itself focuses on nine client-related quality-of-care indicators, including female participation.
She noted that, unlike the Community Scorecard, the other scorecards are fed with routine service-delivery data collected from health facilities across the country.
All the scorecards are hosted on the Scorecard.org platform, which provides national and regional averages for the various indicators.
“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,” she said.
The system is expected to strengthen data-driven decision-making, promote accountability and contribute to improvements in the quality and responsiveness of health services.
GHS scales up Community Scorecard
Ms. Kpodotsi also disclosed that the Ghana Health Service was scaling up implementation of the Community Scorecard to strengthen community participation in health service delivery.
The project, led by the Policy, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Division (PPME) of the GHS, seeks to train more actors at the zonal level and extend the scorecard approach to hospitals and vulnerable groups.
The expansion is intended to give communities and vulnerable populations a stronger voice in assessing health services and identifying areas requiring improvement.
She said health managers would be expected to provide quarterly support for implementing action plans developed in response to concerns and ratings raised by communities.
The GHS also intends to institutionalise the Community Scorecard across all levels of the health system.
This will include training staff at regional, district and hospital levels, integrating the scorecard into the curricula of health training institutions and ensuring that the initiative is recognised as a policy intervention with dedicated budgetary allocations for routine and sustainable implementation.
Media urged to amplify community concerns
The Executive Secretary of the African Media and Malaria Research Network (AMMREN), who doubles as the newly appointed board chairperson of Ghanaian Times, Dr. Charity Binka, meanwhile emphasised the importance of the media in amplifying community voices and strengthening accountability in healthcare delivery.
She said improving health services required not only effective systems but also sustained communication, public engagement and access to accurate information.
According to Dr. Binka, the Community Scorecard provides an important platform for communities and health providers to identify challenges, discuss priorities and work together to improve the quality and responsiveness of healthcare services.
“For this process to have a lasting impact, the lessons emerging from communities must be communicated widely, and the voices of citizens must be heard beyond the immediate project locations,” she said.
She urged journalists to translate technical health information into accessible public knowledge, draw attention to community concerns, highlight positive practices and follow up on commitments made by stakeholders to improve healthcare delivery.
“Through responsible and evidence-based reporting, the media can also help strengthen transparency, accountability and public confidence in the health system,” she added.
Dr. Binka said the engagement provided an opportunity for the Ghana Health Service, media practitioners and key partners to share experiences, assess progress and deepen understanding of the Community Scorecard approach.
She reaffirmed AMMREN’s commitment to bridging the gap between health research, policymakers, communities and the media.
She noted that informed communities, engaged health workers and well-equipped media were essential to building responsive and accountable health systems.
Partners support expansion
The Community Scorecard project is being implemented with financial and technical support from the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA).
Other partners include Hope for Future Generation (HFFG), which supports the cascading of training and mobilises women’s groups to participate in the scoring and action-planning process.
The West Africa Program to Combat AIDS and STI (WAPCAS) is supporting hospital-level training involving key population groups to assess HIV and TB services, in collaboration with HFFG.
AMMREN is responsible for visibility and communication for the project, while the School of Public Health of the University of Ghana is also involved in the initiative.
Five key outcomes expected
The GHS expects the expanded initiative to result in the training of regional, district and hospital-level staff to operate and analyse the scorecards for decision-making.
Health committee members are also expected to be empowered to lead quarterly scoring sessions and work with health facilities to develop action plans.
Women’s groups will participate actively in the scoring and action-planning process, while key populations at the hospital level will use the scorecard to assess HIV and TB services.
The GHS further expects the Community Scorecard to become a routine quality-improvement tool supported by dedicated budgetary allocations.
Ms. Kpodotsi said the expanded initiative would give women and other vulnerable groups a more direct role in identifying challenges and contributing to improvements in health service delivery.
She added that integrating the scorecard into the curricula of health training institutions would help ensure its sustainability and routine use across the country’s health system.
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