Fig. 1

A framework for managing a UNHS program – general view. The framework is composed by three phases: a planning phase based on indications from guidelines and recommendations, specificities of the local context, benchmarks, reports from verification phase; an executing phase where the protocol is applied and where data are generated, managed and aggregated for monitoring; a monitoring, reporting and verifying phase where the indicators are compared with benchmarks and a report is generated. The Unified Modeling Language™ (UML®) notation is adopted for representation purposes: black filled circle represents the initial state and rounded circle the ending state; the rounded square indicates an action and the diamond a gateway where the process can take different roots upon a specified conditions; the arrowed line depicts the flow and the stylized sand-glass a time event (specifically adopted for a waiting time); the sharp-cornered square is used for objects/data/information