PCI is delighted to be launching a new collaboration with Health Builders, who have spent nearly a decade developing and strengthening health systems in Rwanda.
Through a structured process of engagement with local primary care facilities, staff are mentored as they work to improve their management performance in areas such as human resources, infrastructure, finances and pharmacy systems.
Now, in collaboration with PCI and with support from Letshego, Health Builders will be developing a new stream of quality assurance around ‘quality of clinical services’ which will deal directly with the quality of patient care delivered.
There has been significant improvement in access to quality health care in Rwanda over the past few decades. Coinciding trends of a strengthening primary health care system in Rwanda and an emerging need to address NCDs offer a unique opportunity for interface between the two and will be a major focus of this project.
The Rwandan Ministry of Health (MoH) has recently prioritized the control and prevention of NCDs. In the 2014 Strategic Plan, the MoH included health service options related to NCD control and treatment as a priority across all levels of the formal health system, including the primary health care centres. As part of this plan, decentralisation of basic NCD treatment from the hospital-level to the health center-level is planned.
From both a health perspective (as the threat of NCDs rise) and a policy perspective (as decentralization occurs & NCDs gain recognition from government entities), this project comes at an opportune time to promote NCD care and increase preparedness of community health centres to deal with the challenges ahead.
Our clinical team worked with Health Builders at the end of last year on a project planning phase, and are looking forward to working with the Rwandan team on quality metrics and training curricula during 2017.