[Health reporting as a contribution to modernizing public health departments: evaluation of a public health project].

The aim of the project titled "Health Reporting and regional Health Policies" was to develop regional health reports. For this reason the project supported five local health departments (Bielefeld, Essen, Herne, Minden-Lübbecke and Münster) in North Rhine Westphalia and the state health department in Brandenburg in their attempt to implement reporting on a constant basis. Considering the lack of practical orientation and models, these responsibilities played an excess burden on the health departments, who were unable to cope. The main problems have been the complexity of the object "health/health system", the heterogeneity and insufficiency of existing data, and of course the poor resources of the departments in respect of know how, staff and equipment. For this reason, the model of development and strategy of implementation was pragmatic. The successful activities of regional health reporting in North Rhine Westphalia served as a basis, which was modified for the communal level. The following statement introduces the main elements of the concept and first results of the practical transformation.