WHO and King’s Global Health Partnerships (KGHP) were invited by the health authorities in Awdal and Marodijeex regions to support efforts to improve quality of care through development of a quality of care strategy, recognizing the significant impacts caused by care that is not effective, safe and people-centred. The support used the recent WHO technical package on Quality of care in fragile, conflict-affected and vulnerable settings and drew heavily on 20+ years of collaboration between KGHP (a health systems strengthening initiative within King’s College London) and local authorities. It is part of a wider project that also includes capacity-building on quality improvement and use of WHO EMRO tools to identify priority gaps on Patient Safety and Quality.
Multi-stakeholder meeting – catalyzing progress on quality
An in-person mission in March 2022 brought together partners from across the local health system, KGHP, WHO Headquarters and WHO EMRO with support from the WHO Country Office. The focus of this mission was a multi-stakeholder meeting to validate a quality of care situational analysis report and plan next steps in development of a quality and safety policy and strategy for these regions.
Key challenges in addressing quality of care
Resource constraints, challenges in aligning funding with local need, and limited access to basic infrastructure have placed constraints on approaches to improve quality in these regions. At the meeting, stakeholders highlighted that a majority of care is provided by the private sector which largely falls outside the direct control of local health authorities, and that any quality strategy would need to appropriately engage all sectors to maximize impact. Meeting participants also noted the need for a stronger emphasis on community engagement as the efforts to improve quality are taken forward.
The meeting was well-attended and demonstrated clear commitment across a wide body of stakeholders to improving quality and patient safety and a shared recognition of the challenges the health system faces. Despite these challenges, there was consensus that improvement in the quality of care is both necessary and achievable.
Next Steps
The workshop and mission were roundly welcomed as successful and important steps in advancing quality of care in Awdal and Marodijeex regions. At the meeting it was decided to produce a quality strategy and establish a quality technical working group to oversee its development and implementation. The situational analysis findings were discussed and validated and will now be incorporated into a final report that will be used to guide development of the policy and strategy.
WHO remains committed to supporting the local population as it takes these next important steps in its journey to eliminate suffering caused by poor quality care.