The PATH project in eight European countries: an evaluation.

Purpose: This paper's aim is to evaluate the perceived impact and the enabling factors and barriers experienced by hospital staff participating in an international hospital performance measurement project focused on internal quality improvement.

Design/methodology/approach: Semi-structured interviews involving international hospital performance measurement project coordinators, including 140 hospitals from eight European countries (Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia). Inductively analyzing the interview transcripts was carried out using the grounded theory approach.

Health system stewardship of National Health Ministries in the WHO European region: concepts, functions and assessment framework.

Objectives: To propose an operational framework for assessing the completeness and consistency of the stewardship function of national health ministries.

Methods: The authors carried out a purposive and multidisciplinary review of the literature and derived an operational framework through iterative discussions and participatory methods. The results of the literature review were compared to the authors' observations of stewardship in action and key functions were matched with case examples from Europe and North America.

Playing to our strengths in evidence and policy.

Lindstrom, MacLeod and Levy provide an interesting and challenging perspective on collaborative policy making. In this commentary, we argue that effective policy making will require playing to our strengths as policy makers and researchers, rather than the creation of new roles and vehicles. We also argue that we need greater value placed on evidence and intellectual capital across all institutions in our health system.