Hospitals in the Western Pacific

Hospitals are the dominant component of health service delivery. Achieving universal health coverage (UHC) is impossible without clearly identifying the role of hospitals and optimizing their performance. Nevertheless, countries continue to struggle to improve hospital planning and management. Facility-level challenges such as weak management, escalating costs, long waiting periods, poor quality and safety, and low patient satisfaction impair hospital performance. At the level of the health system, challenges such as limited integration with primary health care, fragmented funding, weak regulation and inadequate monitoring undermine hospitals’ contributions to population health outcomes.

These challenges occur against the backdrop of rapid population ageing, predominance of chronic health conditions, fiscal pressures, new medical technologies and pharmaceuticals, proliferation of private health care providers and growing public expectations. Given the vital importance of hospitals and persistent challenges, improving hospital planning and management has become a critical issue for countries in the Western Pacific Region.