Egypt

In Egypt there is increasingly strong political support for health sector reform including a widespread recognition that a working information system is necessary to undertake and monitor this reform. This paper assesses the role of USAID technical support to help build health management information systems in Egypt. The major objectives of the report are to: identify constraints to building the necessary information systems, identify and describe available resources, determine the most constructive role for the technical assistance element of the initiative, recommend a development strategy, and outline necessary resources.

The 2004 Egypt Service Provision Assessment (ESPA 2004) survey was designed to collect informationon the provision of reproductive health and child health services in Egypt in order to complement the information obtained through the 2003 Egypt Interim Demographic and Health Survey. The ESPA 2004 collected information on the preparedness of health facilities in Egypt to provide high quality care to clients seeking services for family planning, maternal health, child health, and sexually transmitted infections. A representative sample of 659 clinics of all types of facilities, in both government and nongovernmental organization facilities, was assessed. The survey included, in addition to the resources of the facilities, interviews with service providers, observations of consultations between the providers and clients, and interviews with clients after they were served. The information included in this report is important for identifying areas of intervention that will help improve the quality of family planning, maternal health, and child health services provided to clients. [preface]

This report presents results from the Egypt Health Care Providers Surveys, the objectives of which were to: provide a comprehensive picture of all sources of health care services; provide policy relevant data on critical issues for health sector reform; and create a database on health care providers for use by the Ministry of Health and Population in developing policy reform proposals. Five separate surveys were conducted on health care institutions, private clinics, pharmacies, dayas (traditional birth attendants), and other practitioners. The sample of 10,048 providers was developed from a complete enumeration of all health care providers in sampling areas and data from the 1986 national census.

This short documentary film chronicles the four year journey, initially funded by USAID’s Office of Population, that the governorate of Aswan, Egypt embarked upon to develop greater leadership within all levels of its health care staff. The video shows an innovative process that develops leaders at all levels, including the front lines of health care, to identify challenges and work in teams to overcome obstacles and achieve service improvements. In their own words, doctors, nurses, and outreach workers of hospitals and clinics throughout the region, tell the story of how they became empowered and what they did to improve health results in family planning and maternal child health. Participants share how they worked to improve health care services and indicators in their own communities and expand the program to health units throughout the region using only the resources at hand. [publisher’s description]

This report was developed to outline broad strategy, create a common vision for developing a new core health information system, and describe specific technical development tasks in detail. The new information system must be designed from the top down based on information demand. This should focus development on clear data collection and processing priorities, eliminate collection of unused data, and produce an efficient and relevant system. Information demand is being generated and defined by developing and testing an Executive Information System (EIS), beginning with a very limited set of key indicators and drawing data from the existing HIS.

This research study was undertaken to test the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of two models of integrating family planning services with postabortion services.

This review examines the systemic and individual causes of multiple job holding (MJH) and evidence on its prevalence. MJH should be seen as resulting initially from underlying system-related causes. These include overly ambitious efforts by governments to develop and staff extensive delivery systems with insufficient resources. Governments have tried to use a combination of low wages, incentives, exhortations to public service, and regulation to develop these systems. In many countries, these strategies are not sufficient to outweigh the motivations of and incentives faced by individual health workers in mixed public private labour markets.

The process of health system reform in Egypt has brought an increased need for improved processes of monitoring and evaluation of health sector activities. This report outlines the existing Ministry of Health and Population “Inspection and Evaluation” unit, as well as other agencies involved in health care monitoring, in terms of duties, staffing, and issues that the organizations need to examine and resolve. It goes on to describe three options for handling monitoring and evaluation in the future. [from abstract]

While previous Egyptian studies have identified provider practices contributing to maternal mortality, none has focused on neonatal care. This report details a survey of reported practices of birth attendants. As well, 217 recently-delivered mothers in rural areas of three governorates were interviewed about antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal care they received. [from abstract]

Under its existing primary care strategy-universal access to comprehensive primary care through government and public sector delivery and financing of services-Egypt has made substantial progress in some aspects of primary care in recent decades. Deficiencies exist, however, particularly in routine provision of care to individuals and families by public providers, in disparities of care that exist across regions and socio-economic groups, and in prospects for the sector to respond well to emerging health challenges. This report suggests a new role for government and new approaches, including separating financing of services from their provision and reorganization and integration of care delivery.

The aim of this paper is to review the share of the medical sector in the higher education enhancement project fund (HEEPF), its outcomes, sustainability, and to provide recommendations for keeping the momentum of reform pursuit in the future. [from abstract]