Health Quality Management
At IHC, we have a system’s view of healthcare quality management and have expertise in addressing its different interrelated components. Our quality management activities involve leveraging best practices and frameworks to integrate and align data-driven strategies and processes in the healthcare system for governance, planning, service delivery and patient outcome. Our quality improvement (QI) initiatives are data and objective-driven, resulting in significant improvements towards set standards.
We adopt practical quality management principles and utilize tested quality improvement tools to improve processes and efficiencies in healthcare systems and contribute to measurable health outcomes. Our team have vast knowledge and experience in healthcare quality improvement and entrenches a culture of continuous improvement in our projects.
Our key QA/QI personnel are qualified and experienced in quality
improvement program implementations.
They have the required qualifications, such as master’s degrees, certifications in quality improvement (e.g., Six Sigma and ISO 9001), and experience in several quality improvement program designs and implementations.
IHC is ISO 9001 certified, an Institutional Member of the International Society for Quality in HealthCare (ISQua), and an accredited provider of continuing professional development by the Nigerian Medical and Dental Council (MDCN). As a licensee, we use SafeCare standards and digital platforms amongst other standards to improve healthcare quality in Nigeria.
Our Experiences
Quality Leadership Development
Landscaping Assessment of Quality Assurance/ Improvement Mechanism and Tools.
IHC conducted the landscape assessment of quality assurance/quality improvement mechanisms and tools for healthcare organizations in Lagos State. The landscaping
comprised the review of existing QA and QI approaches and methodologies used in implementing QA/QI projects in the State, identifying the gaps/challenges in implementing QA/QI projects and recommending steps to improve the existing QA/QI strategies.
A harmonized QA/QI approach and tools were disseminated and a Technical Working Group inaugurated to drive the QA/QI process in Lagos State.
Quality Improvement Support
Quality Improvement of Maternal and Child Health Services
IHC supported the development of a Quality Estimation tool (QuEsT) for essential maternal and child health services. This tool integrated existing data elements from the DHIS2 and others and was subsequently used to score and track the quality level of 69 supported facilities in Lagos and Enugu States. We developed a quality improvement plan for each facility in collaboration with the state stakeholders and facility quality Improvement (QI) teams. The priority areas of the QI activities included management and administrative system, human resources management, patient care management, essential drugs and commodities, laboratory, maternal and child health services, health management information system, utilization, clinical outcomes, and community and client
feedback systems. We designed scorecards to track the facilities’ performance across these components, updated them after every assessment round, and publicly displayed them at the facilities to demonstrate commitment to QI. We conducted the baseline, midline and end-line assessments to compare the facilities’ scores at different periods.
The overall average quality score improved during the project
duration. After the second round of assessments and on a scale of 1 to 10, 57% of the health facilities improved above level 5, the project’s targeted minimum improvement level.
Capacity Assessments and Training
Workforce and Facility Assessment for Oloibiri Health Project (OHP)
As part of the OHP project, IHC conducted a workforce and
facility assessment to identify the health workers’ capacity
and training needs and various factors that influence the
workforce environment and develop plans to address them.
We utilized the WHO HRH tools for facility-level and interview-level assessments.
We developed a capacity-strengthening plan to improve health workforce capacity at the system, facility, and individual levels.