Our sincere congratulations to Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad on his comprehensive and prompt sharing of the achievements of the Ministry of Health (MOH) over the past two years (2024-2025), under his stewardship of quwwah wal amanah (strength, resilience and integrity).
Undoubtedly, as a political strategist, he has forged the MOH into governance spaces which none of his predecessors has even dared to venture, in the pursuit of a “future-ready, future-focused, and future proof” health care ecosystem.
The challenges to the MOH are ever increasing and paramount, notably, escalating health care costs, medical inflation, an aging demography, epidemic of infectious diseases (ID) and the non-communicable diseases (NCD), disparities in access to health care services, in the midst of finite fiscal and human resources.
It is only expected that he is bound to face covert opposition from within his ministry, from among bureaucrats who are either buying time to retirement, jostling for posts and/or promotion or just lackadaisical.
But we’ve had the distinct opportunity and joy to be acquainted with some stellar personnel in the MOH who are truly authentic government servants, berkhidmat untuk kerajaan, and genuinely devoted to transforming the landscape of MOH health care deliverables, towards benefiting the health and well being of the ordinary rakyat on the streets.
As the MOH navigates various challenges in its path, it is imperative to identify the milestones in its arduous journey to ensure it remains faithfully on course towards national health goals laid out from the outset.
These constitute the core components of the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) robust and goal-setting framework, for tracking progress, quantifying the effectiveness and impact of MOH policies and programmes, and defining true success.
Allow us to suggest some defining metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs), which may be considered by the minister and the MOH. These indicators, in our opinion, will enhance the competency, accountability and transparency (CAT) of the health care ecosystem. We did the similar, when we suggested KPIs to previous Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin for the MOH’s Covid-19 pandemic management.
Apart from the pursuit of optimal health outcomes, it will empower data-driven decision-making, identify areas for improvements and allocate MOH resources equitably.
Any credible and robust health care system should have a separate and independent unit to audit and benchmark against the gold standards of health care equity, accessibility, safety, effectiveness and impact.
Dzulkefly was proactive in his first term of office (May 2018 – Feb 2020) and envisioned the Performance Health Dashboard, created with content from KPIs, Data Analytics and Data-Driven Decisions.
It is high time that this idea is parked directly under the Minister’s Office, driven by dedicated staff who embrace the SMART framework, and who have ready and easy access to MOH data and informatics, to enable them to retrieve, store, process, analyse and; display the contemporary health care status of the nation on the MOH Performance Health Dashboard. That will be one of the legacies of his term in the MOH office!
Both authors are paediatricians.
- This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of CodeBlue.
