INDICATORS

ANNEX 5: ECHIM Products website
Introduction
Within the ECHIM project there has been some debate about how to present the
different ECHIM products in the best possible way. The ECHI-2 project, predecessor
of ECHIM, used the International Compendium of Health Indicators part 2 (ICHI-
2) website as the carrier of most of its products. However, several discussions and a
structured assessment of the ICHI-2 application pointed out that the ICHI-2 website is
outdated and should be reconstructed.
The discussions in August 2007 led to the development of a new website, which was
later coined the “ECHIM Products” website.
In general it was agreed that the website should place much more emphasis on the
ECHIM products, especially the most important product, the ECHI shortlist.
Furthermore the website will have the same design as the ECHIM “work in progress”
website (www.echim.org), developed at the KTL secretariat in Helsinki. In addition
it was agreed that there should be additional explanatory texts at designated places in
the website, to better explain the purpose of all the items within the website. A search
function was also planned, but eventually not implemented as there was no actual need
for it.
The first prototype of the ECHIM Products website was demonstrated at the 5th
meeting of the Working Party of indicators in December 2007 in Luxembourg. The
reactions were positive and the first real version of the website has been available at
www.healthindicators.org since September 2008, replacing the old ICHI-2 website.
The next paragraphs describe the different elements of the ECHIM Products website,
describing the different content blocks and giving a short explanation of the rationale
behind the products.
Content block 1: The ECHI shortlist
The most important content of the website is the complete metadata, the Documentation
Sheets, for all the 88 ECHI shortlist indicators. The information is displayed in the
same structure as described in Chapter 3.6.
The indicators are listed within a simple hierarchy with the following entries which fully
correspond to the ECHI shortlist division:
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