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USAID Health Care Improvement Project Awarded Two New Task Orders

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded URC the third task order under the USAID Health Care Improvement (HCI) Project Indefinite Quantity Contract. HCI Task Order 3, effective September 2009, extends the Project’s period through September 2013. 

URC initiated the HCI Project in September 2007, building on 15 years of experience applying modern quality improvement (QI) methods in USAID-assisted health programs through the Quality Assurance Project. But HCI’s most recent continuation will focus on the sustainability, expansion, and dissemination of programs in addition to improving health care procedures, implementation, and quality.

In its first two years of implementation, HCI worked in 25 low- and middle-income countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe. HCI has addressed major global health concerns, including effectively treating tuberculosis and people living with HIV/AIDS and reducing mortality among pregnant women and children.

The new task order continues the technical direction of HCI Task Order 1, with additional emphasis on partner organizations implementing health care improvement programs. The new task order expands HCI’s work in priority areas for USAID, including implementing institutionalization of best practices, expanding the QI knowledge base, applying QI methods to human resources management, rapidly disseminating improvements on a wide-scale basis, and increasing cost-effectiveness.

USAID also awarded URC HCI Task Order 2 to support the El Salvadorian Ministry of Health in improving the efficiency and impact of its maternal and child health interventions. This project will be carried out from October 2009 through December 2010.

For HCI Task Order 3, URC added two new partners to its HCI team: The Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Health Research, Incorporated, a not-for-profit affiliated with the New York State Department of Health and its AIDS Institute. The two organizations join a URC-led team of HCI partners that includes EnCompass LLC, Family Health International, Initiatives Inc., the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, and Management Systems International.

Dr. M. Rashad Massoud, Senior Vice President of URC’s Quality & Performance Institute and HCI Director, said HCI’s groundbreaking work in modern improvement methods will have a greater global impact under USAID’s latest award.

“Our approach builds on previous results to continuously improve how we work and increase the magnitude of the results we aim to accomplish,” he said.

For more information regarding HCI’s work, please visit http://www.hciproject.org.

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