International Consultant on Development of Quarterly Health Facility Level Child Survival Dashboards

VNC/KIRA/31/2017. International vacancy. Consultant on the Development of Quarterly Health Facility Level Child Survival Dashboards

VNC/KIRA/31/2017

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you.

For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.

Objective of the Assignment

Despite significant health achievements in recent years, Government and aid development organizations point that the absence of a well-functioning Health Information Management System has prevented policy makers in Kyrgyzstan from monitoring population health in real time, and devising appropriate interventions aiming at further improvements of quality and access to basic health care.  While there are efforts to overcome this situation, UNICEF and the Ministry of Health aim at providing Health care facility managers and Medical staff, with a basic, simple, though useful tool, to quarterly aggregate and summarize information and allow them to make and monitor management decisions to improve results for children.

Background
 
Health data is generated at the facility level and transferred to the district level health department, and above, where it is aggregated and seldom to inform decision-making at district or national levels.
The health sector monitoring and evaluation capacity in Kyrgyz Republic, conducted in 2014, recommended the Health Insurance Fund of Kyrgyz Republic to improve data system integration in the Kyrgyz health system, as a way to enhance the near-real time monitoring and evaluation capability of the Kyrgyz health sector institutions. Reflecting the country’s pluralistic health service delivery arrangements, Kyrgyzstan’s Health Management Information System is highly fragmented. Data generated by sector providers is not linked and handled separately. Redundant overlapping reporting systems result in heavy paperwork burdens and poor data quality. The Health Insurance Fund is willing to improve data integration with an objective that data quality increases, becomes more broadly accessible and supports more decision- making processes.

Scope of work and key tasks

1. Meet with relevant development partners to grasp the country context (WHO, World Bank, Swiss project related to Autonomy of Health providers and etc.) and the focal points from the Ministry of Health at national and subnational levels, Health Insurance Fund, Republican Medical Information center, and the Centre for Monitoring and Evaluation, under the National Centre of Mother and Child care, as well as with experts in E-Health and managers of health facilities (primary and secondary). The main partner in the completion of this task will be a cross-sectorial working group, which is established under the MoH to develop dashboard indicators to assess performance of managers of the health facilities.

2. Identify a list of relevant Key Performance Indicators at facility level, using available information (for a primary and secondary level) which will contribute to assessment of the performance of health providers to provide services to children and improve integration of the services provided by the primary and secondary health facilities;

3. Outcome and impact level indicators related to child rights to survival, using available information at the facility level (primary and secondary level). The specific indicators will be discussed during the mission in-country, together with the Ministry of Health, MHIF and UNICEF.

4. Assess available methods of presentation of information and applications, and elaborate a dashboard/scorecard, designed with end-users needs in mind, to support use of data for decision making, at health facility and district levels, using key performance indicators and outcome and impact level indicators, using Microsoft Excel or any other widely available tool.

5. The dashboard/scorecard will make use of available information at facility level, and the format (elements that it contains, design –shape, coloring, labelling, etc.) has to be tested and made amenable to facility level managers and high-level medical staff. It will support functions such as management alerts, management response or “action” tracker, bottleneck analysis, performance scorecards; while making use of easily and regularly available data.

6. Use real data from the 3 selected health facilities –they will be jointly selected with the Ministry of Health and UNICEF- to produce one dashboard per facility, following the template designed. The indicators should be in line with the Impact and Outcome indicators of the sectorial Health program.

7. Organize and give a participatory one-day workshop on how to interpret the dashboards with management and medical staff from the 3 selected health facilities. The session will focus on the interpretation of causal linkages between outcome and impact level indicators, and key performance indicators. The session will aim at identifying management actions to be implemented at the facility level, that may help improving results, and the creation of an action plan.

8. Prepare 7 pages Concept of the proposal to further model and scale up the useful tool, to quarterly aggregate and summarize information and allow them to make and monitor management decisions to improve results for children.

Expected Deliverables

1. Standard, semi-automated, and action-oriented dashboard/scorecard template, including the list of Key Performance Indicators, Outcome and Impact level indicators, using data available to health facilities based on the analysis of the situation and application of global experience;

2. Three (3) dashboards filled with real data, at facility level;

3. Three (3) Health facility level Action plans to improve results, produced as a result of the joint interpretation of the dashboards during the workshop

4. One day workshop and presentation of the result to the key decision makers. The developed dashboard is accepted by the MOH to pilot it on a level of 3 selected Health facilities.

5. Developed and accepted 7 pages Concept of the proposal to further model and scale up the useful tool, to quarterly aggregate and summarize information and allow them to make and monitor management decisions to improve results for children.

6. Final report, including guidance on the production and use of the dashboard/scorecard

Duration

18 days in August-September 2017.

Education and required qualifications

• Master’s degree in Public Health, Health Management Information System, or related;
• Knowledge and 5-year experience working to foster UNICEF mission, particularly to expand child rights to survival particularly with focus in the area of Health information system;
• At least 10-year experience in working with local bodies and health facilities, international organizations in the production of user oriented child health information management tools on a level of districts,
• Experience in action oriented projects and tools in child health care services.
• Fluency in English. Knowledge of Russian would be an asset.

Duty station and official travel involved

Given that the facilities will be in the South of the country, consultant’s expected duty station is Osh.
He/she will have one stop in Bishkek before travelling to Osh and one stop prior departure from the country, to conduct meetings with UNICEF CO Health specialist and national level authorities.
It is expected that during the assignment consultant may have up to 3 field trips outside of Osh to Nookat district.

Please indicate your ability, availability and daily/monthly rate (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference above (including travel and daily subsistence allowance, if applicable).  Applications submitted without a daily/monthly rate will not be considered.

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