Observation of the Implementation of the Article 11 of General Health Policies in Iran: the study protocol

Overall health policies are one of the major macroeconomic policies that are designed to dynamize the health systems and socialize health plans. The research project "Observation of the Implementation of the Article 11 of General Health Policies" aimed at explaining this policy, formulate the implementation program, defined necessary interventions and determine its monitoring indicators. In this study, a variety of library, documentary, qualitative and descriptive studies were used in different stages. At the expert panels, the various issues and concepts of this policy were identified. Scientific information about these topics was collected in a review study. Stakeholders were identified through documentary reviews and interviews with experts and program managers. General objectives, strategic objectives, strategy, short-term goals and interventions were defined in expert panels. Focus group discussions were used for gathering complementary information about the plan and in process interventions. In priority interventions were proposed by considering national plans and policies. The findings of this study provide health authorities the needed information to implement Article 11 of the general health policies and to monitor it. These achievements are presented in another paper. The methodology of this project is presented here. By this methodology it was tried to define information needed, monitoring indicators and in-priority indicators with considering optimal use of resources.  The method could prevent of duplication of formulation and implementation of operational programs and could provide a good model for researchers, planners and executives.