Increased Rwandan Access to Obstetrician-Gynecologists Through a U.S.-Rwanda Academic Training Partnership.

Objective: To evaluate the first 5 years of the Human Resources for Health Rwanda program from the program onset in the July 2012-2016 academic years, and its effects on access to care through examination of: 1) the number of trained obstetrician-gynecologists (ob-gyns) who graduated from the University of Rwanda and the University of Rwanda-Human Resources for Health program and 2) a geospatial analysis of pregnant women's access to Rwandan public hospitals with trained ob-gyns.

Methods: We used GPS coordinates in this cross-sectional study to identify public (government) hospitals with ob-gyns in 2011 (before initiation of the program) compared with 2016 (year 5 of the program). We compared access to care for the years 2011 and 2016 through geocoding the proportion of pregnant women within 10 and 25 km from these hospitals and compared the travel time to these hospitals in the two time periods.