Quality of Care Officer - Lahore

The Government of Pakistan stands committed to globally recommended actions for eliminating preventable maternal and newborn mortality. The country has made progress on some key maternal, newborn and child health indicators over last few years as reported in the demographic and health survey. However, the progress is not translated into comparable reduction in maternal and newborn morbidity and mortality rates. There are various areas still falling short of optimum performance including early initiation of breastfeeding, postnatal care for mothers and newborns, birthweight recoding etc. This indicates a serious challenge of quality of care that requires concerted efforts to achieve the desired improved MNCH outcomes. Latest developments in the country including the development of UHC benefit package (essential health services package) and Primary Health Care priorities have reinforced the need to accelerate progress for improving quality of care.

WHO Pakistan has supported the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulation & Coordination (MoNHSR&C) in institutionalization of various quality of care tools. These include the Maternal and Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response (MPDSR), a strategy that provides required information for guiding public health actions focused on reducing maternal and neonatal deaths. MPDSR includes the routine identification, notification, quantification and determination of causes and to prevent all maternal and neonatal deaths, as well as the use of this information to respond with actions that will prevent future deaths. The Robson’s ten group classification system (TGCS) is another similar quality of care tool aiming at optimizing the use of caesarean sections by allowing to compare CS rates for the purpose of audit and monitoring interventions. The result is improvement in quality of care for both the mothers and newborns at the time of childbirth. The TGCS is being implemented across all four provinces and areas with WHO support over last couple of years and the support needs to be continued to scale-up its implementation. Similarly, the WHO labour care guide is another tool for improving the intranatal care practices and reduce preventable maternal and newborn morbidity and mortality. This tool is also introduced recently with WHO support and technical assistance would be required to continue the implementation progress as well as scale-up the use of LCG across the country.

With this background, an individual is required to provide support in Lahore, Punjab for ensuring implementation of the MPDSR system, TGCS and LCG at scale in the respective geographical areas.

The purpose of this position is to support the process of institutionalization of WHO quality of care tools including MPDSR system and implement relevant workplans in close collaboration with respective Departments of Health and partners. The incumbent would work very closely with the Provincial Departments of Health including all the relevant programs (IRMNCH/MNCH Program, LHW Program, DHIS Program as well as with the WHO Islamabad and respective provincial sub-offices in all provinces and Islamabad to provide technical assistance in implementation of MPDSR workplan and also support TGCS, LGC and other quality of care tools implementation across the respective provinces.

The incumbent will:

• Draft and disseminate communications/notifications to focal point on quality of care at respective provincial DOH to support the RMNCAH quality of care initiatives.

• Provide technical assistance for trainings on MPDSR for selected facilities/districts:

• Gather and prepare the revised training materials on MPDSR system.

• Draft an outline action plan of trainings and refreshers for all selected facilities/districts of the province.

• Draft a costed plan for the implementation in selected facilities, a costed plan for scale up of MPDSR, TGCS and LCG implementation to other facilities and districts in coordination with Provincial Health Departments and the respective districts.

• Provide technical and logistical support to the Provincial Health Departments in coordinating facility, district and provincial MPDSR review meetings through respective committees as per stipulated schedules and ToRs.

• Brief and coach the relevant committee members in use of MPDSR software tool and facilitate the data management at the implementing units at the selected hospitals.

• Draft reports and lessons learned to brief the MPDSR Provincial Task Force, facility and district review meetings.

• Undertake monitoring activities for MPDSR system, TGCS & LCG implementation at the selected healthcare facilities.

• Conduct analysis of data from MPDSR, TGCS & LCG implementation and generate technical reports of the reviews in coordination with the Provincial Health Departments focal persons

• Draft reports for all activities under MPDSR system, TGCS & LCG implementation (challenges, achievements, next steps) and submit progress reports for review by Ministry & WHO teams.

Technical skills:

• Report writing skills
• Training skills
• Excellent networking and coordination skills
• Data management skills

Competencies required:

• Teamwork
• Communication
• Producing results

Language requirements:

Proficiency in reading, writing, and speaking both English and the local language is required.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

• Only candidates under serious consideration will be contacted.
• WHO is committed to workforce diversity.
• WHO has a smoke-free environment and does not recruit smokers or users of any form of tobacco.
• A written test may be used as a form of screening.
• Appointment of selected candidate will be on Local Individual Contractor Agreement (LICA) issued by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) for a period up to three months which is further extendable based on multiple factors including job performance, programme need, and funding availability. LICA is a non-staff contract whereby the signatory has the status of a contractor and not considered in any respect as being a staff member of either the World Health Organization (WHO) or UNOPS. As such, there will be no employer-employee relationship between the signatory and the contracting Organization.
• In the event that your candidature is retained for an interview, you will be required to provide, in advance, a scanned copy of the degree(s)/diploma(s)/certificate(s) required for this position. WHO only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU)/United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed through the link: http://www.whed.net/. Some professional certificates may not appear in the WHED and will require individual review.
• For information on WHOs operations please visit https://www.who.int