Strengthening the policy, implementation, and accountability environment for quality care: experiences from quality of care network countries.

Despite global commitment to universal health coverage with quality, poor quality of care (QOC) continues to impact health outcomes for mothers and newborns, especially in low-and-middle income countries. Although there is much experience from small-scale projects, without a long-term perspective it is unclear how to implement quality of care effectively and consistently for impact. In 2017, ten countries together with the WHO and a coalition of partners established the Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (the Network).

Improvement in Infection Prevention and Control Performance Following Operational Research in Sierra Leone: A Before (2021) and After (2023) Study.

Introduction: Infection prevention and control (IPC) is crucial to limit health care-associated infections and antimicrobial resistance. An operational research study conducted in Sierra Leone in 2021 reported sub-optimal IPC performance and provided actionable recommendations for improvement.

Methods: This was a before-and-after study involving the national IPC unit and all twelve district-level secondary public hospitals.

Facilitators of co-leadership for quality care.

argue that national leadership for quality of care requires working in a co-leadership model such that quality and programme units have equal standing and clearly defined individual roles and responsibilities

Scale-up of a novel vital signs alert device to improve maternity care in Sierra Leone: a mixed methods evaluation of adoption.

Background: The CRADLE (Community blood pressure monitoring in Rural Africa: Detection of underLying pre-Eclampsia) Vital Signs Alert device-designed specifically to improve maternity care in low resource settings-had varying impact when trialled in different countries. To better understand the contextual factors that may contribute to this variation, this study retrospectively evaluated the adoption of CRADLE, during scale-up in Sierra Leone.

Methods: This was a mixed methods study.

Prioritizing Health Care Strategies to Reduce Childhood Mortality.

Importance: Although child mortality trends have decreased worldwide, deaths among children younger than 5 years of age remain high and disproportionately circumscribed to sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia. Tailored and innovative approaches are needed to increase access, coverage, and quality of child health care services to reduce mortality, but an understanding of health system deficiencies that may have the greatest impact on mortality among children younger than 5 years is lacking.

Objective: To investigate which health care and public health improvements could have prevented the most stillbirths and deaths in children younger than 5 years using data from the Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) network.

Opportunities and challenges in implementing community based skilled birth attendance strategy in Kenya.

Background: Availability of skilled care at birth remains a major problem in most developing countries. In an effort to increase access to skilled birth attendance, the Kenyan government implemented the community midwifery programme in 2005. The aim of this programme was to increase women's access to skilled care during pregnancy, childbirth and post-partum within their communities.