URC/CHS News Archives | Contact us | Home

URC/CHS News

2004

Progress Project in Morocco Comes to a Close

Following eight years of assistance in improving the quality of health care in Morocco, the Progress Project (Project de Gestion Régionale des Services de Santé) has been concluded. Since 1994, URC, in collaboration with John Snow, Inc., has provided technical assistance to the Ministry of Health, for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). After more than thirty years of support to the Moroccan health sector, USAID officially concluded its program of assistance in September of this year, at the same time that Progress ended.

A job aid wall poster for emergency obstetrical care produced by the Ministry of Health

Progress sought to strengthen decentralized management of health services and worked with two regions, Tanger-Tétouan and Souss-Massa Drâa. Each of these regions had benefited from prior exposure to and assistance with quality assurance and developed its own quality assurance (QA) plan as part of a strategic, longer-term vision. In the northern region of Tanger-Tétouan, URC's assistance was directed at strengthening and expanding the use of quality improvement within health centers, focusing on teamwork, the use of data, and improved client satisfaction. In the region of Souss-Massa-Drâa, URC helped local officials introduce collaborative improvement approaches, addressing the quality of sexually transmitted infection prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, and improving emergency obstetrical care. URC also provided support on a limited scale to the national level, focusing on broadening support for the National Program for Quality Assurance throughout the Ministry of Health, including training institutions, research and laboratory, and the public sector.

The results of the past three years have been very promising in that both of the regions have demonstrated a sustained commitment for quality improvement, which has gone beyond isolated QA efforts. In Souss-Massa-Drâa, the successful establishment of a model of syndromic management for sexually transmitted infections is being replicated beyond the five health centers that originally participated. The region of Tanger-Tétouan also achieved impressive results in the training and institutionalization of QA methods throughout all seven provinces in the region. The region has also taken a number of initiatives to broaden the focus of its quality improvement efforts and obtain additional funding.

Job aids for emergency obstetrical care, including wall posters and pocket guides, were developed, tested, and printed. URC worked with maternal health experts to build local capacity to develop job aids and with the Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) unit of the Ministry of Health to produce the job aids in-house.

URC also provided technical support for Morocco's first National Conference on Quality and Health. This conference, which took place in November 2002, brought together representatives from across the health sector, concluding both private and public institutions. Technical presentations focused on determinants of quality care, and participants formulated recommendations on how to improve each of them. The conference gave renewed impetus to the process of institutionalization of QA throughout the health sector. The Ministry of Health's website (www.sante.gov.ma) provides detailed information on the proceedings of the conference, which have also been published as a CD-ROM.

As part of the project close-out, URC also supported each of the two regions in conducting an in-depth analysis of the status of institutionalization of QA in their respective regions. The institutionalization model [View the QAP Monograph entitled Sustaining Quality of Healthcare: Institutionalization of Quality Assurance] developed by URC's Quality Assurance Project provided the framework for a self-administered questionnaire filled out by all health centers. Tanger-Tétouan has used the questionnaire data to develop its own institutionalization plan for QA for the next five years.

Return to What's New

Back to top