CORRESPONDENCE

Response to 'Re: Monitoring District Health System performance in South Africa: A proposed dashboard based on key pragmatic indicators'

To the Editor: We welcome, and agree with, the suggestion that there should be indicators in the dashboard to measure non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which form a large component of the overall disease burden in South Africa, and are likely to become increasingly important in the future.

Unfortunately, the current information system at primary care level is based on aggregated cross-sectional data, without the ability to track individual patients longitudinally over time. Once the long-promised patient unique identifier is in place and we have a functional electronic health record (one of the basic building blocks and a requirement of any National Health Insurance), we will be able to develop and measure metrics and indicators related to NCDs.

P Barron

School of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa pbarron@iafrica.com

H Mahomed

Western Cape Government Department of Health and Wellness; Division of Health Systems and Public Health, Department of Global Health, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa

T Masilela

Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, South African Government, Pretoria, South Africa

K Vallabhjee

Clinton Health Access Initiative; and Division of Health Systems and Policy, School of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, South Africa

N Ndlovu

Health Systems Trust, Durban, South Africa

C Goliath

Western Cape Government Department of Health and Wellness, Cape Town, South Africa

H Schneider

School of Public Health and SAMRC Health Services to Systems Research Unit, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa