About the Star Approach

Key to the Star approach is the involvement of all stakeholders in a workshop process of structured decision analysis, so informed decisions about resources can be made. For this to be successful, the workshops are led by a skilled and experienced Star facilitator.

Workshops

The Star facilitator starts working with the organisation before the workshop(s). Preparation begins with an initial meeting between the Star facilitator and the team who are responsible for resource allocation decisions to discuss the goal of ‘their’ Star approach. The group needs to agree:

• which area(s) of resource allocation and which interventions they will focus on
• which stakeholders therefore need to be involved (including patient and community representation)
• what data they will need to inform the discussion.

The participants in the workshop, guided by the facilitator, discuss each intervention under consideration to gain a shared understanding of the costs and benefits.

The role of the Excel-based Star tool in the Star approach

The Excel-based Star tool is used to generate graphical displays of the data as comparative value triangles. The facilitator works with the group to discuss the implications for resource allocation between the interventions and to reach consensus on the next steps after the workshop to act on the conclusions drawn.

The Star tool will not produce a definitive ‘answer’ from the data. It is the technical element of a broader facilitated dialogue - as the diagram below illustrates. It serves as an enabler, turning data into a meaningful output. The tool itself is of little value without the stakeholder discussions part of the Star approach.