Empaneled public and private health facilities will provide outpatient health services under the new outpatient scheme. In order to understand the readiness of these health facilities to provide these services, the qualitative working group of INSPIRE Pakistan interviewed medical officers in 12 public and 6 private health facilities in Mardan district, which will be empaneled under the scheme. 

The overall aim of these interviews was to establish a qualitative supply-side panel of health facilities to follow implementation processes of the upcoming outpatient scheme overtime, and to supplement information for a readiness assessment for the scheme with the quantitative supply-side panel of health facilities established within the research consortium. Key aspects of scheme readiness explored in these interviews included:

• Respondents views on the current provision of health services, including experiences with medicines supply, diagnostics and referrals,
• The digital readiness and use of information technology for different processes within the health facility,
• Financing of services and management practices dealing with funds for the facilities,
• Knowledge of health facility staff about the inpatient scheme and forthcoming outpatient scheme.

Data collection took place between the end of December, 2024 and February, 2025. Public facilities included Basic Health Units, Rural Health Centers, Category D Hospitals and the Tehsil Headquarters. The working group also interviewed the District Health Officer in Mardan to understand the health administration’s perspectives regarding the outpatient scheme.