Health · Michael Teye Amartey

Journalists school on Community Health Scorecard project to help promote its effective implementation.

The Ghana Health Service  has called on the media to actively utilize the national Community Scorecard (CSC) framework to bridge service delivery gaps and accelerate progress toward international health targets. 

They gave the directive during a virtual webinar titled “An Engagement with Journalists on the Community Scorecard (CSC) Project in Ghana,” organized by the Ghana Health Service in collaboration with the African Media and Malaria Research Network ,AMMREN, and the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA).

The virtual engagement followed a key policy expansion where the GHS officially integrated specific tracking indicators for HIV and tuberculosis (TB) into the broader national healthcare scorecard platform.

Addressing participating journalists, The Director of the Policy Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Division of the GHS, Dr. Samuel  Boakye-Boateng,  emphasized that evidence-based reporting is essential to maintaining public interest and promoting health sector accountability.

“The media holds an important role as a bridge between communities, health managers, policymakers, and the public,” Dr. Boakye-Boateng noted in his keynote address. 

He explained that the CSC functions as a structured mechanism allowing local citizens to directly evaluate the care they receive within their Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) zones, thereby identifying gaps and agreeing on practical, local solutions.

According to the GHS, scaling up the community-led governance tool is critical to driving Ghana's progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 3, Good Health and Well-being and SDG 16, Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions.

The webinar served as a technical briefing for journalists to navigate the platform's data and ethically report on community feedback. 

GHS leadership explicitly cautioned the press against using the findings as punitive measures against specific healthcare workers or local clinics.

Instead, journalists were urged to approach scorecard data as entry points for collaborative problem-solving. Dr. Boakye-Boateng advised reporters to investigate the holistic context of community assessments by asking systematic questions: what the community experienced, what explanations the facility provided, what collaborative actions were agreed upon, and what tangible changes occurred as a result.

The Community scorecard Project Focal Person, Aseye Kpodotsi,  detailed the recent platform expansion during the session. 

Originally introduced in 2018 to obtain quarterly community feedback, the platform is not a standalone system but belongs to a comprehensive suite of digital health scorecards optimized alongside international partners to track local healthcare indices.

The inclusion of new HIV and TB metrics aims to drastically improve sub-district case management and bring specialized visibility to vulnerable patient groups, ultimately reducing unnecessary patient referrals to over-burdened district hospitals.

The GHS reiterated its commitment to maintaining an open relationship with the media, pledging to provide ongoing data clarification and share progress indicators to ensure transparent reporting nationwide.