Client : University Research Corporation

Project: Jamaica Healthy Lifestyles

This program funded by the USAID mission in Jamaica promotes improved adolescent reproductive health through a package of initiatives including expanded access to youth-friendly services, education, increased community support, and improved national polices and guidelines. HSI is responsible for providing program planning, monitoring, and evaluation services for this five-year program.

Client : Program for Alternative Technologies in Health

Project: Malaria Control & Evaluation Partnership in Africa (MACEPA)

MACEPA provides financial and technical resources to Zambia's national plan to control malaria. MACEPA particularly focuses on strengthening the ability of health programs in Zambia to document how controlling malaria improves health status and increases economic productivity of families and communities.

MACEPA, collaboration among PATH, the Government of Zambia and the Zambia Roll Back Malaria Partnership, was formally launched during the 58th World Health Assembly in Geneva in May of 2005 and is supported by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  HSI is providing technical assistance to PATH and MACEPA and developing the Human Resource model and strategy for meeting the scale-up of Roll Back Malaria program activities.

Client : United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID)

Project: Six Year Human Resources Emergency Strategic Plan for the Government of Malawi

HSI developed a comprehensive human resource plan covering all positions within the Malawi Health Service.  The plan included innovative strategies for retention, training, and recruitment of health service staff.  The plan was adopted by the Government and formed the basis for successful mobilization of over $200 million in donor funding.

The programme will increase the UK’s spending in Malawi by 50 per cent and will result in a 30 per cent rise in Malawi’s total health budget.

In January 2006, the Malawi Health Minister Hetherwick Ntaba stated  “ the number of resignation letters from nurses has reduced from six per month to almost none”. He said the reduction could partly be attributed to health sector reform implemented with funding from the Department for International Development (DfID) and Global Fund.  Ntaba said since government started to provide remuneration supplement to health workers in April, the morale among nurses has improved.

“Before the remuneration supplement in April, we were having more than 120 nurses going to the UK,” he said. “Although they are working in harsh conditions, we have seen the improvements in their morale.”  He said with the US$100 million from DfID and another US$100 million from Global Fund, government was optimistic that it would alleviate problems in the health sector.

Client : University Research Corporation

Project: Romanian Health Care Reform Program (RHCRP)

The 18-month project, funded by USAID, was designed to assist Romania to reallocate resources to the primary health care (PHC) system and to strengthen and improve PHC services.   As prime contractor, URC worked in partnership with Health Strategies International and with collaborating organizations to provide technical assistance to the Government of Romania to implement key health system reforms. Technical assistance was be provided in the areas of health policy reform and implementation, quality assurance, pharmaceutical management and reform, and advocacy.

Through close collaboration with the Romanian Ministry of Public Health, Health Strategies International succeeded in developing secondary legislation to support new primary health care reform laws and helped to bridge local and state policymaking processes by strengthening decentralized policy development, fostering a demonstrably greater sense of community responsibility for public health. Additionally, through the implementation of specialized training programs for General Practitioners and the establishment of an efficient patient data management system, the RHCRP increased the overall capacity of Romanian primary health care centers and improved access to integrated quality services. In the area of pharmaceutical management, the RHCRP established a Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee and Formulary to allow hospitals to appropriately budget and secure funding for pharmaceuticals, thus improving drug allocation and the use of social sector resources.