This work builds on a review of English- and Thai-language literature that covered Thailand’s health system context, response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and essential health services maintenance.
The research team carried out qualitative data collection through key informant interviews. A total of 21 participants were interviewed over the course of the research project. A combination of purposive sampling and snowball sampling was used during the recruitment process. A total of 11 participants were interviewed through purposive sampling in an initial first phase to acquire a high-level overview of the policy and health systems response landscape to COVID-19 and maintenance of essential health services. An additional 10 participants were then interviewed through snowballing; the interviews focused on a selection of good practices for deeper understanding.
A combination of telephone and Zoom conference calls were conducted from August 2021 to April 2022. All interviews followed a semistructured interview guide with questions categorized into three major sections, but with interviewers having full flexibility to pursue in greater detail any relevant topics or issues of particular interest or importance depending on the conversation. The high-level interview guide sections included (1) pre-COVID-19 insights on the Thai health system context, (2) COVID-19 impact and response, and (3) identification of specific good practices and their long-term implications on health systems strengthening. The sample was representative of personnel from all areas of health systems research, policymaking bodies, private and public hospitals, and nongovernmental organizations.
In addition to qualitative data, several publicly available quantitative data sets were used and triangulated across the current study, including:
- Daily COVID-19 data were extracted from the Department of Disease Control open database, a publicly available database used by the government for collecting and reporting data on Thailand’s COVID-19 situation. The data set included the daily number of newly diagnosed COVID-19 cases, daily number of COVID-19-related deaths, and daily number of those who recovered; data were disaggregated by provincial and country levels starting from January 12, 2020, the date COVID-19 was first discovered in Thailand. The dataset was used by multiple governmental departments to share publicly available data, including both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19-related data sets
- The number of daily polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing and positive rate, COVID-19 variants surveillance data, and number of laboratories certified for PCR testing were extracted from the Thai government’s open database mentioned above. The Department of Medical Sciences was responsible for regulating and updating the three COVID-19-related data sets used in the study.
- Thailand health system use and outcome data were extracted from the Ministry of Public Health’s Health Data Center database. Multiple indicators were used to evaluate the performance of Thailand’s health system. This database was designed using data from routine health services—each hospital directly reported service utilization and outcomes to its provincial public health office for provincial-level evaluation. Furthermore, data were sent and integrated for national comparison at the central data center, which is part of the Ministry of Public Health.