Health Information &Health Systems &Health Workers &Leadership Bill Brieger | 30 Oct 2018 07:10 am
Assessing Organizational Capacity to Deliver Malaria Services in Rural Liberia
Swaliho F. Kamara, Wede Tate, Allyson R. Nelson, Lauretta N. Se, Lolade Oseni, Gladys Tetteh of MCSP/Jhpiego are presenting a poster at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene on Malaria Service delivery in rural Liberia. Their findings are shared below:
In Liberia Malaria prevalence in children under 5 is 45% nationally and higher in rural counties (NMCP et al. 2017). The National Malaria Control Program (NMCP) leads the rollout of malaria prevention and control activities to county health teams (CHTs), per the National Malaria Strategic Plan (2016–2020). A key donor supporting malaria prevention and control, the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), has been committed to the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW) strategy since 2008, when it began working in three out of 15 malaria-affected counties. PMI supports CHTs in their management of local health systems and service delivery oversight. As part of an expansion program to five additional rural, neglected, high-burden counties in 2017, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/ PMI-funded Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP) assessed CHTs’ organizational capacity to identify ways to improve the quality of malaria health services.
We assessed CHTs’ capacity using a modified organizational capacity assessment (OCA) tool that was used by the USAID’s Rebuilding Basic Health Services (RBHS) project to assess the capacity of the MOHSW, CHTs, and district health teams (DHTs), capturing four of the six World Health Organization (WHO) building blocks of the Health Systems Framework. We also assessed all 30 districts in five counties. Performed desk review, review of self- evaluations, and face- to-face validation interviews. The assessment focused on processes, not physical systems, so the capacity and knowledge of the respondents may have influenced results in some of counties.
Scoring Structure of the OCA Tool: Following each assessment, MCSP used a detailed summary sheet (Figure 3) to display the aggregate scores for each subarea under all key domains, then generated an overall score for each domain. The total score was then expressed as a percentage for each key domain. The majority of the assessment involved asking specific questions about performing malaria interventions per the project scope.
Effective Interventions were determined:
- Health Workforce Interventions …
- Trained health care workers.
- Trained supervisors on revised supervision tool.
- Performed quarterly supervision and mentoring.
- Leadership and Governance
- Identified a malaria focal point.
- Activated functional health-sector coordination committees.
- Held quarterly review meetings.
- Health Information System
- Provided health management information systems (HMIS) forms to health facilities.
- Facilitated in-service training on onsite data verification.
Results showed that CHTs’ overall average score was 87% in service delivery, 65% in health information systems, 78% in health workforce, and 70% in leadership/management. Interventions addressing gaps identified in health workforce, leadership and governance, and health information systems resulted in improved service delivery (see Figure 4).
In conclusion, The OCA tool helps to identify common challenges, assist with systemwide improvements across CHTs or DHTs, evaluate progress, and meet specific needs. Future efforts are needed to improve the tool’s specificity, the weighting attached to different sections and issues, and its relevance to different types of organizations. Training is an important component to capacity-building, but it is just one part of the picture. Need to improve the way organizations and CHTs/DHTs coordinate with partners to improve all health interventions. Need to focus on application and results of capacity-building, not on capacity as an end in itself.
This poster was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), under the terms of the Cooperative Agreement AID-OAA-A-14-00028. The contents are the responsibility of the Maternal and Child Survival Program and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.