New Article Examines Effect of Training Approaches on Malaria Case Management

Posted on January 31, 2014August 1, 2017

Martin Mbonye

In Uganda, the country with the world’s highest malaria transmission rate, effective training of frontline health workers is especially critical. A new article reports the positive effects of the Integrated Infectious Disease Capacity Building Evaluation (IDCAP)’s training approaches on malaria case management in the country.

“Effect of Integrated Capacity-Building Interventions on Malaria Case Management by Health Professionals in Uganda: A Mixed Design Study with Pre/Post and Cluster Randomized Trial Components” was lead-authored by Martin K. Mbonye, Msc., a researcher at the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI) in Kampala, Uganda, and published in open-access journal PLOS ONE on Jan. 8; the full text is available online.

“This project made huge strides toward improving the capacity of health workers,” said Mbonye. “These findings have positive implications for Uganda’s increasing ability to take ownership of its malaria interventions and better fight infectious diseases – which account for the majority of the disease burden in the country.”

The IDCAP provided classroom training, distance learning, and on-site support to mid-level practitioners through two interventions: the Integrated Management of Infectious Disease (IMID) training program and on-site support, which integrated site visits and continuous quality improvement. Building on the work of the Joint Uganda Malaria Program (JUMP), IDCAP tackled a wider scope, including malaria, pneumonia, tuberculosis, HIV, and related infectious diseases. (Read more about the interventions and other results here.)

The evaluators then measured the effects of the interventions and the performance of 36 facilities. The results were promising; the combination of interventions was found to improve emergency triage, assessment and treatment processes, and malaria care, a topic of particular importance in Uganda, where steady temperatures and rainfall enable high levels of malaria transmission year-round.

As the IDCAP’s monitoring and evaluation team specialist, and then as program manager, Mbonye oversaw the project’s data surveillance system. He reported improvements in the use of diagnostic tests for malaria suspects, the prescription of the appropriate antimalarials for patients who were determined to need one, and a reduction in the prescription of antimalarials among patients who tested negative for malaria. This decrease in presumptive diagnosis is an important element in reducing drug stockouts and resistance.

I-TECH was one of four partners in the now-completed IDCAP grant to the Accordia Global Health Foundation, and University of Washington professor Marcia Weaver is the IDCAP principal investigator. This article is one of the first in a series of papers describing the study’s results.

New Article On Cost Effectiveness Of Training

Health Systems Strengthening Human Resources for Health Monitoring & Evaluation

Posted on May 22, 2013May 1, 2017

A new article on cost-effectiveness analysis of global training programs has been published in a leading journal on health workforce issues.

The article, “Cost-Effectiveness Analyses of Training: A Manager’s Guide,” was written by two I-TECH faculty: Gabrielle O’Malley, who is I-TECH’s Director of Operations Research and Quality Improvement, and Marcia Weaver, a Research Associate Professor based at I-TECH. Elliot Marseille of Health Strategies International in San Francisco also contributed to the article that appears in the journal Human Resources for Health.

The evidence on the cost and cost-effectiveness of global training programs is sparse. O’Malley and Weaver wrote this manager’s guide for professionals who want to recognize and encourage high quality cost-effectiveness analysis.

Weaver credits O’Malley with coming up with the idea for the article and spearheading it through several drafts over several years. In her role at I-TECH, O’Malley participates in meetings with policymakers and sees how compelling evidence on cost-effectiveness can be as well as the potential for cost data to be misinterpreted or misused.

“The objectives of the article are to promote professional standards for cost analyses and cost-effectiveness and show it’s feasible to provide evidence within the scope and budget of a training program evaluation,” Weaver said.

I-TECH Releases Updated Manual on Essential Supervisory Skills

Health Systems Strengthening Human Resources for Health Leadership & Management

Posted on May 20, 2013May 1, 2017

The International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH) is pleased to announce the release of the second edition of I-TECH’s manual Essential Supervisory Skills, which you can download here (PDF, 2.7 MB).

A resource for managers, this “supervisor’s toolbox” is a 65-page manual developed from years of research and discussions with supervisors in a variety of industries from several countries. This easy-to-use guide gives managers a step-by-step plan to develop their supervisory skills while helping their employees reach their potential. Seven chapters include background and instructions on accountability, evaluation, effective hiring and how to address performance issues.

“The purpose of the Supervisor’s Toolbox is to provide a convenient resource supervisors can turn to when dealing with the myriad of issues that come their way,” said Richard Wilkinson, I-TECH Human Resources Director.

Decisions supervisors make often have a direct impact on employees’ lives—and global health. Wilkinson points out that investing in training for supervisors translates to more effective, efficient, and happier employees.

“There’s an old saying that employees join organizations and leave bosses,” he said. “Supervisors directly affect the difference employees can make in contributing to the success of their teams and I-TECH. My hope is these tools will help supervisors communicate clearly and manage confidently.”

I-TECH South Africa Co-Hosts Third National Regional Training Centre Conference

Health Systems Strengthening HIV Care and Treatment Human Resources for Health South Africa

Posted on March 12, 2013August 1, 2017

Every biennium, the South African National Department of Health hosts a National Regional Training Center (RTC) Conference that brings together RTC managers, their line management, as well as key policy makers from the National and Provincial Departments of Health.This year I-TECH South Africa was honored to serve as a co-host.

This was the third national conference, and this year the theme was A Decade of Strengthening the Health Care System: Developing Human Resources for Health through the Regional Training Centers.

The popular conference registered 137 delegates out of the expected 120. Public health experts delivered compelling talks, whose topics ranged from leadership and management to innovative ways of delivering training.

I-TECH-SA-NTC-300 — I-TECH South Africa staff were key to organizing and hosting the conference.

I-TECH South Africa presented a talk on The Findings of the Situational Analysis in Nine Regional Training Centres of South Africa, as well as a report on Regional Training Center Models, which was authored by Dr Nathan Linsk, a professor at the Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who drew on his 25 years experience with the US AIDS Education and Training Centers network. Both of these reports contributed significantly to the subsequent three days of discussion about the future of Regional Training Centers in South Africa.

During the conference, delegates were divided into five commission that looked at:

Future role (Coordination of all in-service training; Institutional Base, Location, Funding model)
Resources for RTCs (Human, IT, Internet connectivity, Equipment, Infrastructure etc.)
Training and Education Approach (Mentoring, distance learning and Resource Library)
Coordination, Accreditation and linkages with academic institutions (levels of accreditation, certification etc.)
Planning, M & E, Reporting (Training needs analysis, integrated planning, M & E systems)

RTC managers took the worksheets from the 5 Commissions and developed an action plan, which was presented by the National Department of Health in a plenary session. As part of the next steps, I-TECH South Africa and NDOH will write a Conference report that will contain the action plan and a monitoring and evaluation plan as attachments. The NDOH will present the action plan to the National Health Council, made up of the National and Provincial Ministers of Health, for high level decisions and support toward the implementation of the proposed model.

Ivoirian OpenELIS Software Developers Build Skills In Seattle

Cote d'Ivoire Health Information Systems Health Systems Strengthening Human Resources for Health Laboratory Systems

Posted on February 8, 2013November 1, 2019

The weather has been rainy, and the midwinter days are short, but for two software developers from Côte D’Ivoire, four mid-winter weeks in Seattle offer a rare chance to develop skills under the close mentorship of University of Washington I-TECH experts.

DrKone — Dr Kone presents his capstone project to the Seattle OpenELIS team.

“There is no opportunity in Côte D’Ivoire to build software development skills like this,” said Dr Constant Kone on a recent afternoon as the grey Seattle rain pelted against the window of his borrowed office at I-TECH. His colleague Mr Kamalan Fourier, typing intently on his laptop across the table they share, nodded in agreement.

For several years, I-TECH has coordinated the implementation of the OpenELIS software in national public health laboratories in Côte D’Ivoire, an effort that is led by a highly skilled UW-based health informatics team. The open source laboratory informatics software was customized by the I-TECH team to match the workflow and local needs in Côte D’Ivoire.

But after the initial push to develop and install the software, there was a need for ongoing support, bug fixes, and additional features. “We get continual requests to add new features,” says Jen Antilla, a training specialist on the Seattle team, “for example to respond to new lab processes or build new reports that users need. And like any software, there will always be bugs to fix. We want to build the capacity to respond to those requests locally, in the labs where OpenELIS is running.”

Mr Kamalan Fourier — Mr Fourier presents his capstone project to the team.

Like all I-TECH programs, the Côte D’Ivoire deployment of Open ELIS is on a trajectory towards local ownership and sustainability, but that path is made more complicated by the lack of skilled software developers in Côte D’Ivoire. I-TECH began recruiting for local software developers in April 2012, and recognizing that most applicants would require additional training, the team started designing a custom training course to build the Open ELIS development skills of the new hires in Côte D’Ivoire.

As the first trainees, Dr Kone and Mr Fourier are in Seattle for four weeks, which is the intensive first phase of a planned nine month training program that will continue remotely after they return home.

Central to the training is a problem-based curriculum developed by Antilla and her colleagues, which moves the learners through a typical software development cycle: gathering requirements, designing the solution, developing it into the Open ELIS codebase, and testing it before implementation.

Paul Schwartz reviews the work presented by his Ivoirian colleagues, and provides feedback.

“It gives them the opportunity to learn about the different facets of Open ELIS as well as the tools and process needed to build a new feature,” says Antilla. “And to do so under the direct guidance of a mentor who’s spending lots of face-to-face time with them. When they return to Côte D’Ivoire they will continue with similar exercises a few hours each week, under a remote mentorship of our team, for the next 8 months.”

In the next few months Open ELIS will be fully implemented at a new site in Côte D’Ivoire, the lab at the Institut Pasteur. For the first time there will be local developers on-site with the skills to solve problems locally for their colleagues, with ever-decreasing support from Seattle.

And the I-TECH team in Seattle looks forward to having skilled colleagues at the point of deployment, sharing of the load.

“There’s nothing quite like having the opportunity to build a personal relationship over 4 weeks together in Seattle,” said Paul Schwartz, the senior software engineer on the Seattle team. “I look forward to working shoulder to shoulder with them after they return. Even when those shoulders are half a world away in West Africa!”

Botswana Monitoring and Evaluation Workbooks Now Available Online

Botswana Human Resources for Health Monitoring & Evaluation

Posted on February 7, 2013May 1, 2017

In Botswana, I-TECH helped the Ministry of Local Government and the National AIDS Coordinating Agency to train and place local monitoring and evaluation officers in every district across the country (read more about that program here).

Botswana M&E officer — An I-TECH-trained Monitoring and Evaluation Officer conducts a community survey in Botswana.

Three self-directed learning workbooks developed for the program are now available online. The workbooks are designed to provide information and guidance for carrying out monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of health programs. They were created as training documents and reference materials for district-level M&E Officers in Botswana. They can also be used by other Program Officers in the district who are involved in M&E.

The first workbook, entitled An Orientation to District-Level Monitoring & Evaluation, focuses on tasks and information necessary for newly recruited M&E Officers who are beginning work in the field. It provides an orientation including: an overview of HIV and AIDS, the national health programs in Botswana, job description, core activities of district M&E Officers, an introduction to M&E, and an introduction to e-reporting of district health data.

The second workbook, entitled Doing the “M” in M&E, focuses on monitoring activities. This workbook provides information on basic M&E processes. It also provides a practical overview of data collection, data management, data quality, basic data analysis, as well as a guide on presentation skills.

The third workbook, entitled Doing the “E” in M&E, focuses on evaluation activities. This workbook provides information on designing evaluation studies, collecting and analyzing evaluation data, and writing reports.

Learn more about I-TECH Botswana.