Monitoring & Evaluation

Audit and Feedback: Effects on Professional Practice and Health Care Outcomes (Review)

This review aimed to assess the effects of audit and feedback on the practice of healthcare professionals and patient outcomes. [from abstract]

Human Resources for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health: from Measurement and Planning to Performance for Improved Health Outcomes

This paper focuses on the collection and use of strategic information on human resources for health for decision making and performance monitoring to achieve the MDGs for maternal and child health. It collected and analyzed cross-nationally comparable data on HRH availability, distribution, roles and functions from new and existing sources, and information from country reviews of HRH interventions that are associated with positive impacts on health services delivery and population health outcomes. [from author]

Hybrid Approach to Efficiency Measurement with Empirical Illustrations from Education and Health

This paper proposes a new approach to measure inefficiency and use it in benchmarking exercises to improve provider performance. [adapted from abstract]

How Health Systems Make Available Information on Service Providers: Experience in Seven Countries

This report reviews information systems that report on the quality or performance of providers of healthcare in seven countries to inform the use and further development of quality information systems. [from preface]

Still Too Little Qualitative Research to Shed Light on Results from Reviews of Effectiveness Trials: a Case Study of Cochrane Review on the Use of Lay Health Workers

In a Cochrane review on the effects of using lay health workers on maternal and child health and infectious disease control, the authors identified 82 trials that showed promising benefits but whose results were heterogeneous. The objective of this research was to use qualitative studies conducted alongside these trials to explore factors and processes that might have influenced intervention outcomes. [adapted from abstract]

World Health Statistics 2011

This document is a report on the World Health Organization’s annual compilation of health-related data for its 193 Member States. It includes a summary of the progress made towards achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals and associated targets. [from publisher]

Baseline Assessment of HIV Service Provider Productivity and Efficiency in Uganda

As part of the collaborative to improve the efficiency of HIV service delivery, the authors conducted a baseline assessment of HIV/AIDS provider productivity, efficiency, and engagement in Uganda. [adapted from author]

Global Health Education Framework: a Conceptual Guide for Monitoring, Evaluation and Practice

This research article proposes a framework conceptualising global health education in practice to guide the evaluation and monitoring of educational interventions and reforms through a set of key indicators that characterize it. [adapted from abstract]

Policies and Practices of Countries that Are Experiencing a Crisis in Human Resources for Health: Tracking Survey

In order to understand and monitor the progress in developing and implementing HRH policies in the 57 countries experiencing a critical deficit in the health workforce, this tracking survey provides an overview of the current situation in terms of HRH policies, plans, capacities and processes. [from author]

Power to the People: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment on Community-Based Monitoring in Uganda

This paper presents a randomized feld experiment on community-based monitoring of public primary health care providers in Uganda. Through two rounds of village meetings, localized NGOs encouraged communities to be more involved with the state of health service provision and strengthened their capacity to hold their local health providers to account for performance. A year after the intervention, treatment communities are more involved in monitoring the provider; health workers appear to exert higher effort to serve the community; and there was a positive impact on child health.

Missed Opportunities in TB Diagnosis: a TB Process-Based Performance Review Tool to Evaluate and Improve Clinical Care

This study describes a novel method to review and evaluate clinical performance in TB management and for evaluating tuberculosis (TB) control at the point of care using a process-based performance review tool to identify missed opportunities for early and accurate TB diagnosis. This tool is a teaching strategy where clinicians retrospectively review patient records to evaluate crucial clinical actions, and has been shown to improve clinical performance. [from author]

Evaluation of the Organization and Provision of Primary Care in Serbia

The Primary Care Evaluation Tool is an instrument developed to examine the supply and demand-side aspects of primary care (PC). It is intended to support ministries of health and other stakeholders in monitoring the progress of their PC-related policies and reforms and to set new priorities on the basis of evidence-based information with the aim of further strengthening PC. This report gives an overview on the findings of the tool in Serbia. [adapted from abstract]

Handbook for Measuring and Monitoring: Indicators of the Regional Goals for Human Resources for Health

As a self-contained technical instruction manual, this handbook is intended to provide a practical tool to guide the identification and definition of initial baseline data to be collected in order to provide a descriptive profile of countries’ human resources for health to facilitate monitoring their progress towards achieving their HRH goals over time. [from author]

Conceptual Review of the Demands of Chronic Care and the Preparedness of Nurses Trained with the General Nursing Council of Zambia Curriculum

The study analyzes the deficiency that seem to exist between nurse curricula
and nurse practices and explore chronic care models or approaches evident among Zambian General Nursing Council (GNC) final year nursing students and GNC trained practicing nurses. The study also assesses how they formulate these chronic care models or approaches. [from author]

South African Health Review 2010

The 2010 edition of the SAHR focuses on two main issues: Reflections on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Perspectives on a National Health Insurance (NHI) for South Africa. As is customary, the Review ends with the Indicators section which provides a range of indicators relevant to the MDGs and NHI. [from summary]

Monitoring Community Pharmacist's Quality of Care: a Feasibility Study Using Pharmacy Claims Data to Assess Performance

The purpose of this project was to determine the feasibility of routine use of information from community pharmacy claims databases by regulatory authorities to screen the quality of care provided at community pharmacies. [from abstract]

Competencies Tools

This is a digital collection of health competency tools. The Competence Search tool enables you to search the database for specific health worker competencies. The Health Functional Map is another tool to help you find relevant competences based upon the Skills for Health, Health Functional Map, and covers all of the functions that are needed to deliver effective health care services. The Self Assessment tool enables assessment of your own abilities against competences in lists/profiles. The Team Assessment tool enables a skills mix analysis of your team.

Towards a Comprehensive Approach to Enhancing the Performance of Health Workers in Maternal, Neonatal and Reproductive Health at Community Level: Learning from Experiences in the Asia and Pacific Regions

This discussion paper presents a comprehensive approach to the assessment of individual health worker, team and HRH management performance in the context of health system strengthening and the achievement of Millennium Development Goal 5. It provides examples of lessons learned in the planning, implementation and evaluation of HRH interventions in maternal, neonatal and reproductive health at the community level in the Asia and Pacific regions and considerations for enhanced performance in this area. [from introduction]

Perceptions and Attitudes of Clinicians in Spain Toward Clinical Practice Guidelines and Grading Systems: a Protocol for a Qualatative Study and a National Survey

Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) have become a very popular tool for decision making in healthcare. While there is some evidence that CPGs improve outcomes, there are numerous factors that influence their acceptability and use by healthcare providers. This study evaluates these issues in a representative sample of clinicians in Spain. [from abstract]

Assessment of Early Diagnosis and Treatment of Malaria by Village Health Volunteers in the Lao PDR

This article assesses the effectiveness of village health volunteers in performing early diagnosis and treatment to reduce the burden of malaria in Loa PDR. [adapted from abstract]

Evaluation of Health Workforce Competence in Maternal and Neonatal Issues in Public Health Sector of Pakistan: an Assessment of Their Training Needs

The high perinatal and neonatal mortality rates in Pakistan are partially attributable to scarcity of trained skilled birth attendants and paucity of resources. Empowerment of health care providers with adequate knowledge and skills can serve as instrument of change. This training needs assessment analysis of the public health sector of Pakistan aims to recognize gaps in the processes and quality of MNCH care provided. [adapted from author]

Improving Quality of Malaria Treatment Services: Assessing Inequities in Consumers' Perceptions and Providers' Behaviour in Nigeria

Information about quality of malaria treatment services of different healthcare providers is needed to know how to improve the treatment of malaria since inappropriate service provision leads to increased burden of malaria. This study determined the technical and perceived quality of malaria treatment services of different types of providers in three urban and three rural areas in southeast Nigeria. [from abstract]

Data for Improvement and Clinical Excellence: Protocol for an Audit with Feedback Intervention in Long-Term Care

The primary purpose of the Data for Improvement and Clinical Excellence Long-Term Care (LTC) project is to assess the effects of a quality improvement audit with feedback intervention delivered monthly over 13 months to healthcare workers in four LTC facilities. [adapted from abstract]

Making Research Findings Actionable: a Quick Reference to Communicating Health Information for Decision-Making

The goal of this document is to provide a quick reference of suggested communication approaches for health researchers and M&E professionals in order to facilitate stakeholders’ use of health information for decision-making. [from author]

Promising Practices to Build Human Resources Capacity in HIV Strategic Information

The aim of this document is to identify and document promising practices to plan, develop and support national human resources in HIV related strategic information/monitoring and evaluation (M&E). This document adds to recent global M&E system strengthening guidance by compiling examples of promising approaches from a wide range of countries, and is intended for use in the creation of country plans to strengthen the workforce to support a fully functional, national M&E system to ensure strategic information for HIV/AIDS programming. [adapted from summary]

Sleep and Recovery in Physicians on Night Call: a Longitudinal Field Study

The aim of the present study was to examine whether a 16-hour night-call schedule allowed for sufficient recovery in anaesthesiologists compared with other physician specialists handling less life-threatening conditions, when on call. [from abstract]

Characterizing Hospital Workers' Willingness to Report to Duty in an Influenza Pandemic through Threat and Efficacy Based Assessment

Hospital-based providers’ willingness to report to work during an influenza pandemic is a critical yet under-studied phenomenon. Witte’s Extended Parallel Process Model has been shown to be useful for understanding adaptive behavior of public health workers to an unknown risk, and thus offers a framework for examining scenario-specific willingness to respond among hospital staff. [from abstract]

Data Mapping Template on Human Resources for Health

This tool is to be used as a starting point for the collation, analysis and synthesis of data and evidence on human resources for health (HRH), as well as for monitoring the strengths and limitations of the underlying information systems. It has been developed as part of a series of efforts to enhance country capacities to generate, analyse and use data to assess health workforce performance and track progress towards their HRH-related goals. [from publisher]

District Health Barometer 2008/09 (South Africa)

The goal of this tool is to improve the quality of and access to primary health care services, by monitoring and measuring important performance indicators of the health system at district level. It provides an overview of the delivery of primary health care services in the public health sector across the provinces and districts in South Africa by means of an annual publication including data on nurse clinical workload and clinic supervision rate. [adapted from publisher]

Competencies Assessment Tool 2010

This tool is an instrument for healthcare executives to use in assessing their expertise in critical areas of healthcare management. [adapted from author]