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Women Making a Difference

Olga Chernobrovkina, Russia
URC Quality Improvement Advisor, USAID Health Care Improvement Project

By Victor Boguslavsky

Dr. Olga Chernobrovkina, a pediatrician with many years of professional experience, leads quality improvement initiatives in Russia, under the USAID Health Care Improvement Project (HCI).

Olga facilitates a joint learning session of teams from St. Petersburg, Togliatti, Saratov, and Orenburg Oblasts.

Olga was the Deputy Head of the Regional Pediatric Hospital in the city of Tver when URC’s Quality Assurance Project (QAP), funded by USAID, came to Russia in 1998. Tver was proposed as one of the demonstration regions for the application of quality improvement methodology to the health sector. Not surprisingly, the maternal and child health area was identified as a priority, and Olga and her staff were thrust into the unfamiliar terrain of improvement work.

After learning quality improvement methods to analyze and find weaknesses in existing care processes, Olga decided to focus on improving services for neonates suffering from Respiratory Distress Syndrome (RDS). Working with neonatalogists from a few sites in Tver, she led a team that redesigned and put in place protocols for management of neonates and emergency transfer of newborns suffering from RDS to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the Regional Hospital. The results were impressive: within less than two years, the 7-day survival rate for neonates after primary resuscitation went up to 95% and mortality from RDS went down by 64%.

Empowered by these results, Olga and her staff became active promoters of improvements throughout the Tver region and later helped to facilitate the application of their improved care processes and improvement methods in over 20 other regions of Russia. Her leadership in facilitating the application of the quality improvement approach by a large number of teams and hospitals in Tver region and beyond served to transform Olga from clinician to a committed quality improvement professional.

In 2004, USAID and the Russian Ministry of Health and Social Development identified the fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic as a priority area for bilateral cooperation. QAP was asked to address improvement of the quality of HIV/AIDS care in Russia. HIV/AIDS services pose a particularly complex area for improvement. Olga was among those few leading professionals in Russia who knew how to engage health professionals in improvement efforts and make them effective. She decided to leave her clinical career in pediatrics in order to be further engaged in quality improvement and, by doing so, to promote its application across other health and social services in Russia. 

Today, Olga is a leading expert in quality improvement in Russia whose contributions have been widely recognized by health authorities, providers, and patients. As part of the USAID Health Care Improvement Project, she runs innovative improvement collaboratives on HIV/AIDS care that involve providers from over 100 hospitals and City AIDS Centers, social services organizations, and NGOs.

“We are grateful to Dr. Chernobrovkina for her mentoring in guiding us through the improvement of HIV/AIDS services in our district. We have learned much from her patience and professionalism,” remarked Dr. Tatiana Popova, Director of the Krasnogvardeisky District Health Department of St. Petersburg City.

Dr. Chernobrovkina’s ability to energize health professionals around improving health care quality and her contributions to better health and social services are making a difference for people living with HIV in St. Petersburg City, Leningrad, Saratov, Orenburg, and many other Russian regions. 

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