Integrated Health Model User Guide Version 2.0.pdf

Developed by the United Nations Millennium Project and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Integrated Health Model is one of a suite of Excel-based sector tools used by the MDG Support Team in UNDP to aid countries in MDG-based planning. The primary purpose of the Integrated Health Model is to help governments estimate the total resources—human, infrastructural, commodities, financial—that are required to meet the health-related MDGs. The tool does not estimate the impacts of interventions on health outcomes or the socioeconomic impacts of ill health. The tool can assist with health systems planning, including the identification of critical capacity constraints to health systems scale-up.

The Integrated Health Model can be used for other purposes in addition to MDG-based planning. For example, users can use the tool to estimate costs for vertical programs, such as malaria or HIV/AIDS, or include more expansive sets of interventions, such as treatment for chronic conditions or mental illness (i.e., an MDG+ scenario), to allow for broader health systems planning and budgeting. Time horizons can also be altered for more flexibility.

The Integrated Health Model is not the only tool for health planning and budgeting, including that related to the MDGs. A variety of other tools exist, each with different purposes and scope, many of which estimate resources for stand-alone vertical programs, often with insufficient treatment of the health system. In contrast, the key feature of the Integrated Health Model is the coherent scale-up of integrated health services anchored in a comprehensive treatment (including costing and identification of constraints) of the health system. Moreover, the Integrated Health Model is one of the few, if only, tools that addresses all of the health MDGs simultaneously.

The Integrated Health Model was not developed from scratch but rather from the principles and lessons learned from other costing tools, many of which are mentioned above. In fact, some sections of the Integrated Health Model consolidate and build directly on several health costing tools created by other development partners. For example, the child health section is adapted from previously unpublished Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) costing model developed by UNICEF and WHO. The section on maternal and reproductive health comes directly from UNFPA’s Reproductive Health Costing Tool.