TORs: National Junior STTA – Research Associate
Develop a Strategic Plan for Ensuring Quality of Care across Health Systems in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Programme Overview
Evidence for Health (E4H) is a Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)-funded programme aimed at strengthening Pakistan's healthcare system, thereby decreasing the burden of illness, and saving lives. E4H (2023-2027) provides technical assistance (TA) to the Federal, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), and Punjab governments. E4H works in partnership with the Health Department in KP. Through its flexible, embedded, and demand-driven model, E4H delivers TA across three outputs:
Output 1: Strengthened integrated health security, with a focus on preparing and responding to health emergencies, including pandemics.
Output 2: Enhanced capacity for evidence-based decision-making to drive health sector performance and accountability.
Output 3: Improved implementation of Universal Health Coverage, with a focus on ending preventable deaths.
Background and Problem Statement
- The KP DOH there is a lack of a clear strategic plan and a quality assurance unit for QOC leading to coordination challenges and oversight issues, potentially causing:
- Inefficient healthcare delivery, resource wastage, and duplicated efforts
- Varying definitions and maintenance of QOC across healthcare facilities
- Fragmented data collection, monitoring, and evaluation, which impacts decision-making processes.
- Inconsistent and fragmented work in QOC, with a lack of steady financial mechanisms
- Current governance mechanisms within the DOH are inadequate to oversee and ensure healthcare service quality
- The absence of a strategic framework hinders effective responses to evolving healthcare needs, causing challenges to adapt and resolve issues promptly
- Despite substantial investments in the healthcare sector, the desired outcomes remain vague due to insufficient
- The KP HCC, established as an autonomous entity regulates both public and private healthcare facilities to enhance the QOC.
- Meanwhile, the KP DOH has initiated several health reforms, that include QOC initiatives, such as the World Bank funded Human Capital Investment Project (HCIP), the National Health Support Program (NHSP), the revamping of non-teaching hospitals, and the strengthening of Primary Health Care (PHC) services.
- Recognising the need for structured quality management, the DOH plans to establish a dedicated quality cell aligning efforts with the National Health Vision (NHV) and KP Health Sector Strategic Plan (HSSP).
- This TA will be crucial as it will enable the KP DOH to establish a quality unit as a first step, and a strategic plan of quality assurance will be developed outlining strategic objectives, methods, resource allocation, and a monitoring and evaluation framework to ensure QOC across health systems in KP.
Purpose
The purpose of the TA is to devise an institutional mechanism and strategic plan aimed at strengthening the quality of healthcare services in the province. This includes integrating quality management into health system programming, decision-making processes, and regulatory frameworks.
Specific Objectives
The specific objective of this TA is as follows:
- To focus on creating a specialised institutional mechanism within the KP DOH for shaping and managing QOC related policies, programmes, financial mechanisms, and regulatory frameworks. It involves setting clear, measurable targets for QOC improvement across primary and secondary healthcare levels within service delivery areas coupled with the implementation of a robust monitoring system to track, evaluate, and continually enhance the quality of healthcare services and decision-making processes.
Scope of Work and Methodology
- Review literature that includes ongoing healthcare reforms in the province, encompassing efforts to meet Sustainable Development Goal 3.8, objectives of the National Health Vision 2016-2025, the KP Health Sector Strategy, alignment with Pakistan's commitment to Universal Health Coverage by 2030, revamping of Primary Healthcare facilities, public-private partnerships under the KP Health Foundation (HF), programmes like Sehat Card Plus, lessons from the Quality of Care framework at birth, and international QOC reforms to gain broader insights.
- Conduct a stakeholder mapping to identify and engage with relevant stakeholders such as the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations, and Coordination (M/o NHSR&C), the Director General Health Services (DGHS) KP, the Health Sector Reform Unit (HSRU), the HCC, the World Bank funded HCIP and NHSP projects.
- Draft an inception report and develop a presentation to reach a consensus with stakeholders on the approach, methodology, responsibilities, milestones, and timelines.
- In consultation with HSRU, devise a QOC institutional framework within the DOH, designed to influence policies, programmes, finances, and regulations.
- Develop a comprehensive strategic plan for QOC in healthcare delivery, covering result areas, strategies, outputs, interventions/actions, responsible units, timelines, resources, partners, and a monitoring and evaluation plan.
- Share the strategic plan with stakeholders and modify it based on their feedback for collaborative healthcare quality improvement in the province.
- Finalise the strategic plan and develop a roadmap for its execution.
LOE and Timeline
The duration of this position is 35 working days over the period from May 2024 to July 31, 2024.
Requirements
- Master’s degree in public health, Environmental Health, or a related discipline with coursework or projects related to climate and/or health.
- Minimum 5 years of experience in research focused on climate change health impacts, vulnerability assessments, or related areas. Demonstrated skills in primary and secondary data collection for climate and/or health studies.
- Familiarity with assessment tools and methodologies pertinent to climate and health.
- Experience in writing reports, conducting literature reviews, and establishing data-driven insights to visualise data findings through graphs, charts, and other visual aids for effective communication.