August 16, 2021 | Andrew Tie
PACT Endeleza staff celebrate one of the Health Service Delivery awards.
During the summer, the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) held its annual Health Service Delivery Awards to recognize best-performing health facilities in Nairobi County.
Facilities supported by PACT Endeleza — a PEPFAR-funded initiative that Ciheb implements in Nairobi County to provide HIV services — won awards in all categories they participated in: Public Health Centers, Public Dispensaries, Faith-Based Organizations, and Non-Governmental Organizations. NMS evaluated facilities based on their performance in continuous quality improvement (CQI) metrics.
The facilities that received the awards were Njiru, Kayole, and Embakasi health centers, Umoja 2nd Karen dispensary, SOS Children’s Village, and Dreams Centre VCT.
The overall awards were based on 12 components or dimensions listed below in which the facilities also won certificates.
- Leadership - Njiru, Umoja, and Dreams
- Human Resources for Health – Waithaka and Umoja
- Guidelines/SOPs – Njiru and Umoja
- Supplies Management - Njiru, Umoja, and Dreams
- Data Management - Mutuini, Embakasi, Kayole 1, Umoja, and SOS
- IPC - Embakasi, Kayole 1, and Njiru
- Safe delivery (Maternity) – Embakasi and Kayole 1
- Neonatal care - Embakasi and Njiru
- QI Functionality - Dreams, Kayole, and Umoja
Of the 12 categories, Ciheb-supported sites led in nine of them.
Ciheb and the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) have supported CQI efforts in Nairobi County for more than a decade. This began with trainings in 2013 and the institutionalization of a county CQI unit in 2014 and culminated in the Health Service Delivery Awards in 2018.
“The reason for starting the awards was to try and institutionalize quality improvement,” said Sarah Nzyoka, Ciheb’s CQI lead supporting PACT Endeleza. “It was also to recognize facilities that are performing well and a platform for others to learn from each other.”
In more recent years, Nairobi County has continued CQI advances with the help of Ciheb. This includes the adoption of the electronic Kenya Quality Model for Health medical records system in 2019, the QI indicators dashboard in 2019, an action tracker in 2021, and now a CQI project dashboard in 2021 that Ciheb created.
“Our CQI project dashboard has been adopted by the county this year after we did trainings, so that’s our latest achievement of us working with them,” Nzyoka said.
In addition to supporting facilities that won awards, Ciheb also supported the actual awards ceremony itself. Ciheb provided transportation for two days during assessment and donated 100 t-shirts for the ceremony.
“Much appreciation goes to UMB/Ciheb for their support towards the preparations towards the HSDA ceremony,” said Susan Omondi, the quality improvement lead for NMS and a CQI champion. “Also appreciated is the provision of the CQI project platform, which is one of the milestones in the quality improvement program.”
Contact
Center for International Health, Education, and Biosecurity
Institute of Human Virology
Anthony Okoth
Regional Communications Specialist
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