Recent News

URC has released a request for proposals (RFP) for its Indonesia Hospital Accreditation Process Impact Evaluation under the USAID Health Care Improvement Project (HCI). The evaluation’s objective is to increase knowledge of hospital accreditation and the quality of hospital services in Indonesia. This is a one-year, cost-reimbursable subcontract with an anticipated extension for follow-up research over a five-year period. Proposals must be submitted via email to indonesiarfp@urc-chs.com by 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Savings Time on May 25, 2012. Please visit http://www.hciproject.org/indonesiarfp for more information.

After two years of successfully piloting CHS’s Essential Obstetric and Newborn Care (EONC) Network Project in Ecuador’s Pujilí District, Cotopaxi’s Provincial Directorate of Health has announced it will expand the project.

Fifty-eight health officials and representatives of leading health agencies from 33 countries signed a joint statement this week, “Better Care for All, Every Time: A Call to Action.” Resulting from a high-level global seminar held last week in Salzburg, Austria, the statement proposes seven recommendations that could drive a new approach to solving health challenges. The Salzburg Global Seminar and University Research Co., LLC (URC), which co-organized the meeting, now invite others to join by signing on to the statement at the HCI Portal.

URC has released a request for proposals (RFP) for its Africa Child and Family Initiative under the USAID Health Care Improvement Project. Please visit http://www.hciproject.org/africa-child-family-initiative for more information.

URC staff contributed significantly to programming at the 17^th annual International Forum on Quality & Safety in Healthcare. BMJ Group and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) hosted the conference, held April 17–20 in Paris. Under the theme, “Solutions for Tough Times,” the conference drew a record 1700 participants from around the world.

With technical assistance by URC’s Better Health Services (BHS) project, the Cambodian Ministry of Health (MOH) has begun rolling out programs to treat malnutrition.  In Cambodia, 44% of children below the age of five years chronically malnourished, 28% are underweight, and 8% are acutely malnourished.  Twenty percent of women are chronically energy deficient (thin), and 44% of reproductive age women and 57% of pregnant women are anemic.  

This week, University Research Co., LLC (URC) and the Salzburg Global Seminar assembled 60 global health leaders from 35 countries in Salzburg, Austria, for a high-level meeting on the topic, “Making Health Care Better in Low and Middle Income Economies: What are the next steps and how do we get there?” Salzburg Global Seminars convene imaginative thinkers from different cultures and institutions to solve problems of global concern. This seminar focuses on how to transform health systems in low- and middle-income countries to make them capable of continually improving.

Focusing on the theme, “Sustain Gains, Save Lives: Invest in Malaria,” this year’s World Malaria Day, held annually on April 25, recognizes the decade’s achievements in reducing malaria deaths and the importance of sustaining this progress. According to the World Health Organization, deaths caused by malaria fell by a quarter globally over the last decade, and by more than one-third in the African region. Yet an estimated 650,000 people died as a result of malaria in 2010, most of them young children in Africa. University Research Co., LLC (URC) supports efforts to combat malaria in Africa by helping to prevent and control malaria in Ghana and to improve diagnosis and management of malaria cases in young children in Tanzania.

Today, Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar coordinated the first cross-border, multi-country celebration of World Malaria Day in Southeast Asia through a series of educational events and activities. This collaboration reflects the purpose and approach of the Control and Prevention of Malaria Project (CAP-Malaria), funded by the US Agency for International Development and managed by University Research Co., LLC, which convened the activities with local health authorities. CAP-Malaria facilitates sharing of experience and best practices among malaria staff in Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand, which have a high rate of malaria infections in their border regions.

Last month, Ms. Alisha Smith-Arthur, Associate Director of the Program Support Team, traveled to Guatemala to share best practices and lessons learned from the Malaria Control in Cambodia (MCC) and Control and Prevention of Malaria (CAP-Malaria) projects in reducing malaria infections and deaths in Southeast Asia. Funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and managed by University Research Co., LLC (URC), the projects provided valuable insight for Latin American health organizations that gathered to discuss ways to combat malaria in the Amazon Basin region, a region where infections are increasing.

Innovative learning methodologies introduced by URC’s Better Health Services (BHS) project in Cambodia are reviving health care workers’ interest in continuing medical education (CME). As BHS introduces team-based learning (TBL) in select hospitals, hospital staff are providing positive feedback about this participatory methodology, an important change from the customary, lecture-based approaches to learning used to date in Cambodia.

A 2011 survey by URC’s Better Health Services (BHS) project in 16 hospitals and a health center has found significant improvements in the quality of maternal and newborn care. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) is funding the five-year BHS project to work with the Ministry of Health and other partners in five USAID-supported provinces to increase demand for and equitable access to quality health services. Systematic implementation of correct, evidence-based, and timely diagnosis and treatment is still a problem, but many indicators of quality care are improving. Project goals recognize that Cambodian women need skilled care at delivery and that providers must be able to 1) provide high-quality care for normal births and 2) identify and respond quickly and effectively to complications.

The USAID Health Care Improvement Project (HCI) has selected the entry from Mrs. Racheal Mwape of Lusaka, Zambia, as the winner of its 2012 “Best Health Care Improvement Report” contest. The report explains how the Community Based TB/HIV/AIDS Organisation (CBTO) introduced a simple monitoring system and appointment reminders that reduced the TB Treatment Centre's TB treatment defaulter rate from 35% in 2007 to 4% in 2009.

URC’s Integrated Family Health Project (Projet Intégré de Santé Familiale, PISAF) celebrated International Women’s Day in the rural community of Zagnanado, Benin, on March 8^th. In keeping with this year’s theme, “Empowering Rural Women-End Hunger and Poverty,” and its overall goal of improving the health and welfare of the Beninese people, PISAF collaborated with regional ministries and behavior change communication teams to highlight the importance of preserving the health and welfare of women.

URC’s USAID Better Health Services (BHS) project has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Cambodia’s Ministry of Health (MOH) to provide technical support and monitoring of all health equity funds (HEF) in Cambodia. HEFs provide free access to public health services for an estimated 2.25 million poor Cambodians. They cover not only the direct costs of health services and medications for the poor but also reimburse patients for transport and their caretakers for food expenses during hospitalizations. In USAID-supported areas alone, HEFs have tripled the hospital services use rate by the poor, and that rate now exceeds that of the non-poor.

Cambodia has kicked off a mass media campaign to promote the continued breastfeeding of children until at least age two. Developed with technical support from URC’s Better Health Services (BHS) project, funded by USAID, the campaign complements both existing Ministry of Health spots on early and exclusive breastfeeding and a Ministry/UNICEF campaign on complementary feeding of children aged 6 to 24 months. The TV spot can be viewed here.

Ms. Katharine McPhee, star of the TV show Smash and an American Idol runner-up, recently visited the Promoting Malaria Prevention and Treatment (ProMPT) project in Ghana, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI). ProMPT, managed by University Research Co., LLC, is working to promote malaria prevention and treatment throughout Ghana. Ms. McPhee is a spokesperson for Malaria No More (MNM), an international non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to supplying everyone at risk for malaria in Africa with a mosquito net and to sustainably ending malaria deaths in Africa by 2015.

University Research Co., LLC (URC) partners with national TB programs in several countries to find new ways to overcome TB. Along with local groups, URC works to develop systems to reach all people with TB, including those with co-infected with HIV and those with drug-resistant TB. This year’s World TB Day theme is “Stop TB in Our Lifetime.” URC programs commemorated the day in creative and inspiring ways.

A series of discussions launches today on the ISQua Knowledge Portal, an online forum, in the lead up to next month’s Salzburg Global Seminar, which will convene imaginative thinkers from different cultures and institutions to solve problems of global concern. The forum’s topic matches the seminar’s theme, “Making Health Care Better in Low and Middle Income Economies: What are the next steps and how do we get there?” Portal registration is free, and the discussion is open to all.

Staff members Dr. Edward Broughton and Dr. Sergio Lopez recently co-authored a research article that analyzes whether it is cost-effective to implement a public health strategy that prevents pneumonia infections acquired by children in hospitals. Dr. Broughton is the Director of Research and Evaluation for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) Health Care Improvement Project (HCI), managed by University Research Co., LLC.   Dr. Lopez is a Quality Improvement Advisor for Infection Control and Prevention with HCI in Nicaragua. Their co-authors included clinicians from the Manual Jesus Rivera and Bertha Calderon Hospitals in Managua, Nicaragua.

Over the past month, nearly 15,000 trained community volunteers visited each household in the Ashanti region of Ghana—from the densely-populated city of Kumasi to remote villages in the region’s forested areas— to register nearly every household in the region of five million people for free, long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs). Registration is the first step in a distribution campaign in which more than 40,000 volunteers will deliver and hang nets in the registered households. Carrying out such a massive effort requires careful orchestration of multiple activities at all levels of the health system and coordination of numerous groups, including donor and implementing agencies, civil society organizations, and community leaders.  Fortunately, the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) Promoting Malaria Prevention and Treatment (ProMPT) project, funded by the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), worked with Ghana’s National Malaria Control Programme  (NMCP) to develop an innovative model that ensures that all these actors work together for a common cause.

The USAID-funded Translating Research into Action (TRAction) Project has issued a request for applications on malaria control.

The Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) Initiative has won a place in the “Technologies and Innovations” category of the “Women Deliver 50” list, which recognizes the 50 most inspiring ideas and solutions for improving the health and well-being of girls and women worldwide. URC is part of the HBB Implementation Advisory Group and works with the group in Afghanistan, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Uganda. In addition to HBB, Women Deliver selected two other URC-affiliated programs as finalists: Mejores Familias in the “Educational Initiatives” category and the Respectful Care Charter in the “Advocacy and Awareness” category.

USAID/Georgia Mission Director Mr. Stephen Haykin and URC Senior Vice President and USAID Health Care Improvement Project (HCI) Director Dr. M. Rashad Massoud officially launched HCI Georgia in February at an event in Tbilisi.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) named the USAID Health Care Improvement Project (HCI) one of five winners in its first-ever “Excellence in Evaluation” contest. The contest recognized the best evaluation reports undertaken by USAID-funded projects. The winning report evaluated the results of 27 health care improvement interventions in low- and middle-income countries carried out by HCI, which is managed by University Research Co., LLC (URC).

Dr. Hill has worked extensively in both Niger, a country with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, and in Washington, D.C., which has one of the highest maternal death rates in the U.S.  Over the years, Dr. Hill has observed disrespectful maternal care in many parts of the world regardless of geographic or resource setting.  More disturbing to her, she realized her own capacity for kindness as a doctor was occasionally diminished because of stressful work conditions.

Over a hundred underprivileged pregnant women in the Philippines received timely prenatal care and information on safe pregnancy and delivery, healthy pregnancy spacing, child health, and nutrition thanks to USAID’s Health Promotion and Communication Project (HealthPRO) and the Philippine Provincial Health Office. The project and office recently organized an integrated health event in Mount Diwata, a small, remote village in the Compostela Valley Province of Mindanao.

Her Royal Highness (HRH) Princess Muna Al-Hussein, the mother of His Majesty King Abdullah II, attended an event hosted by the Health Care Accreditation Council (HCAC) in Amman, Jordan this month.

The Ministry of Health (MoH) of Iraq and the Primary Health Care Project in Iraq (PHCPI) recently co-sponsored a three-day national workshop on strengthening primary health care in the country. PHCPI is funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and managed by University Research Co., LLC (URC). More than 400 participants attended the event, which was held January 21–23.

University Research Co, LLC (URC) recently joined the 1,000 Days partnership, a group that advocates for improving nutrition for mothers and children in the 1,000 days between the start of a woman’s pregnancy and her child’s second birthday.

URC’s Translating Research into Action (TRAction) Project has issued a Request for Applications (RFA) on task-shifting for improving maternal, newborn, and child health services. The RFA calls for implementation research into the use of task-shifting to scale up three interventions: use of medications to promote uterine contractions and prevent postpartum hemorrhage by community health workers, the performance of Cesarean sections by nurses and other non-physician clinicians, and treatment of newborn infection by community health workers.

Despite numerous campaigns promoting voluntary HIV counseling and testing (VCT) even in remote areas of Nigeria, encouraging women in the country to get tested is a challenge. Many women cannot leave their workplaces to access services and fear being stigmatized if they test positive. That’s why URC’s HIV/AIDS Comprehensive Care Initiative (HACCI) project partnered with Women for Women International to better reach women living in rural Nigerian communities.

A newly released film highlights the efforts of governmental and non-governmental organizations to improve the lives of the more than 2.5 million Kenyan children orphaned or made extremely vulnerable by HIV and AIDS. The organizations, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), are using quality improvement methods that the USAID Health Care Improvement Project (HCI) adapted for low-income settings. HCI is managed by University Research Co., LLC (URC).

Ms. Annie Clark, URC’s Senior Quality Improvement Advisor for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health (MNCH), recently visited Afghanistan to conduct a training-of-trainers session with targeted hospital personnel. The training focused on essential newborn care, active management of the third stage of labor, and newborn resuscitation using the Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) methodology.

Dr. Stephen Kinoti, Senior Quality Improvement Advisor for the USAID Health Care Improvement Project and Senior Research Advisor for the Translating Research into Action (TRAction) Project, recently presented the keynote address at the 54^th Annual East, Central, and Southern African (ECSA) Health Ministers’ Conference in Mombasa, Kenya.

The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) recently selected Dr. Aziz O. Abdallah, Chief of Party (COP) for the USAID Health Care Improvement Project (HCI) in Namibia, as a 2012 International Ambassador.

The URC-led TB CARE II Project recently launched the Fellowship Training Program (FTP), which is aimed at training health care professionals who encounter multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). FTP provides in-depth clinical and programmatic knowledge in MDR-TB prevention, treatment, and control. Through this program, TB CARE II hopes to create a cadre of MDR-TB professionals who will contribute to the scale-up of drug-resistant TB programs worldwide.

The USAID Health Care Improvement Project (HCI) is holding a contest for the best stories about improvements made in a local setting by health care providers and implementers in USAID-assisted countries. The winner will receive an all expenses paid trip to present his or her story as a poster at the Global Health Council conference to be held July 18–21, 2012, in Washington, DC.

Swaziland has the highest HIV prevalence in the world; an estimated one in three women and one in five men are HIV positive. When Swaziland’s national HIV testing and counseling program was established in 2002, the focus was only on providing voluntary testing and counseling, where individuals opt for these services voluntarily. However, by 2007, fewer than one in five people had ever taken an HIV test and received their results, and nearly 85% of Swazis did not know their HIV status.

An Australian TV station recently featured a story on maternal and neonatal mortality at Malalai Hospital, which has one of Kabul’s busiest maternity wards, with 25,000 deliveries per year.  URC’s USAID Health Care Improvement Project (HCI) is working with Malalai Hospital to improve management of the leading birth complications for both mothers and babies, and improve monitoring and care after birth.

New findings from a focus group funded through URC’s Translating Research into Action (TRAction) Project shows that women in Uganda preferred improved, energy-efficient wood stoves to traditional cooking methods. The women said that new stoves produced less smoke, used less wood, and cooked foods faster.

US Agency for International Development (USAID) Chief of Staff Margaret C. Sullivan visited USAID-funded activities in Tanzania’s Morogoro region in December. She met with local health care providers and staff of the USAID Health Care Improvement Project (HCI), managed by URC, and learned about their work in combating HIV/AIDS in the region.

On December 12^th, University Research Co., LLC (URC) and George Washington University’s Center for Global Health sponsored a roundtable discussion, “Informing Feed the Future: Integration Success,” at the Global Health Council. Attended by over 70 participants, the roundtable focused on health and HIV/AIDS programs that have successfully integrated nutrition, food, and agricultural interventions, making effective use of public and private partnerships.

New HIV/AIDS infections in the Philippines continue to rise, especially among a specific population: males who have sex with males (MSMs). To target this group, the US Agency for International Development supported an initiative focused on providing information using mobile phone short message service (SMS) technology. 

University Research Co., LLC is participating in a new consortium of researchers that has been awarded a contract from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  The QED Group, LLC, will lead the consortium, which also includes Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and BroadReach Healthcare. The consortium will also be supported by the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria awarded University Research Co., LLC (URC) a contract to conduct a short-term evaluation of the national tuberculosis (TB) program in Benin. The Global Fund helps support the program. URC will work with stakeholders in Benin to collect clinical, financial and other data and assess whether the Global Fund’s investments in TB are effectively reaching those who need it.

Dr. M. Rashad Massoud, Senior Vice President and Director of Quality & Performance Institute, attended a conference in Kuwait called Quality in Health Care: Achieving Quality in Health Care.  Held earlier this month, the conference was convened by Kuwait’s Minister of Health, H. E. Dr. Hilal Al-Sayer, and focused on the theme of “Achieving Quality in Health Care Services and Outcomes.”

URC's UADPEI designed a 15-second PSA about underage drinking prevention that is featured on the CBS Super Screen in Times Square once every hour.

The Philippines’ Department of Health (DOH), with assistance from URC’s Health Promotion and Communication Project (HealthPRO), successfully completed its first year of the Lakbay Buhay Kalusugan (LBK), or “Journey to a Healthy Lifestyle,” bus tour. The LBK bus travelled to ten different areas across the Philippines, reaching over 30,000 beneficiaries, mostly women and children in remote barangays (villages).

URC's Malaria Control in Cambodia (MCC) project was featured in the 2011 State of the World's Volunteerism Report, which focuses on supporting the recognition, facilitation, networking and promotion of volunteerism worldwide. The report is published by the United Nations Volunteers program. 

University Research Co., LLC (URC) co-hosted a roundtable discussion, “Informing Feed the Future: Integration Success,” with George Washington University’s Center for Global Health on Monday, December 12, 2011, at the Global Health Council.

University Research Co., LLC (URC) through the TB CARE II Project is soliciting applications to support knowledge management and web portal management.

On this World AIDS Day, December 1, 2011, people around the world are promoting the “Getting to Zero” campaign – the goal backed by the United Nations to have zero new HIV infections and zero AIDS-related deaths. For those who work on the frontlines of HIV care, reaching this goal involves addressing a host of underlying factors at each level of a complex and multifaceted system. Just two of these factors are how we ensure that every patient who needs care gets it and how we evaluate the care provided.

Several members of the USAID Health Care Improvement (HCI) | Tanzania and Tibu Homa [Treat Fever] projects participated in the First National Quality Improvement Forum in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in November 2011.  The forum’s theme was “Achieving Quality Health Services in Resource Constrained Settings: Experiences from Quality Improvement Initiatives and Lessons Learnt.”

The Cambodia Better Health Services (BHS) project have produced a new film and accompanying learning materials to train midwives in Cambodia in proper delivery practices and care. The film, called “A Safe Delivery,” covers topics such as preventing infection, good delivery and immediate post-delivery practices, communicating with mothers and families, and postpartum and newborn care.

URC had a significant presence at the 42^nd Union World Conference on Lung Health in Lille, France, on October 26–30, 2011. Thirty-six URC participants—representing Bangladesh, Botswana, Cambodia, Georgia, Indonesia, Malawi, South Africa, Swaziland, Vietnam, and Bethesda headquarters—attended, with support from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The Quality & Performance Institute (QPI), a division of University Research Co., LLC (URC), signed a collaborative agreement with the International Society for Quality in Health Care, Ltd (ISQua) during the latter’s 28th International Conference in Hong Kong, China. The agreement established an alliance between QPI and ISQua based on their shared goal of improving health care in developing countries.

With assistance from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the Better Health Services (BHS) Project sent four Cambodians to the 6th annual OpenMRS (Open Medical Record System) Annual Implementer's Meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, in mid-October. The session significantly advanced BHS efforts to strengthen a critical piece of Cambodia’s health system. Managed by URC and funded by USAID, BHS is building the capacity of public and private health service delivery systems; expanding models for health financing; improving the quality and impact of maternal, neonatal, and child health services; and strengthening the control of infectious diseases.

URC has received a five-year cooperative agreement from the US Agency for International Development Regional Development Mission for Asia to support and strengthen country and regional efforts for malaria control in the Greater Mekong Sub-region, an area in Southeast Asia that includes Burma, Cambodia, and Thailand. The Control and Prevention of Malaria (CAP-Malaria) Project will be implemented with partners Save the Children and Kenan International Asia. 

The first workshop to tackle how core competencies for quality improvement can be integrated into the education and training of health workers in Africa was convened by the USAID East Africa Health and HIV/AIDS (USAID/EA/RHH) Office, the Regional Center for Quality of Health Care (RCQHC) and USAID Office of HIV/AIDS (OHA), with assistance from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Health Care Improvement Project (HCI), managed by University Research Co., LLC (URC). The Africa Regional Consultative Workshop for Health Care Improvement: Catalyzing and Institutionalizing Quality Improvement workshop was held in Kampala, Uganda in October 2011.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates that the world’s population will reach 7 billion today. To commemorate this landmark event, UNFPA have designated October 31, 2011, as the Day of 7 Billion to raise awareness around key population issues and the opportunities and challenges in a world populated by seven billion people. One of these challenges is to ensure that women and men have the ability to make informed decisions about the number and spacing of their children so that no child is born unwanted. University Research Co., LLC (URC) is committed to meeting this challenge through implementation of high-quality family planning programs. 

The Center for Human Services (CHS), URC’s non-profit affiliate, held an open house on Tuesday, October 18th to debut its new office in Vineland, New Jersey. Representatives from several community, government, and private-sector organizations attended the event, which garnered media attention.

URC and its non-profit affiliate, the Center for Human Services (CHS), will present on approaches to improving the quality of care in domestic and international health systems this week during the American Public Health Association (APHA) meeting in Washington, DC.

URC’s recently completed NuLife – Food and Nutrition Interventions for Uganda project helped create lasting solutions to integrate nutrition care into the treatment of those infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS, pregnant or lactating women, and orphans and vulnerable children.

A new article in the American Journal of Public Health highlights the success of Cambodia’s village malaria workers program, a network of health workers focused on preventing, diagnosing and treating malaria in rural villages in Cambodia. The program, which is run by the National Malaria Control Program, is supported by the Malaria Control in Cambodia (MCC) Project funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by University Research Co., LLC (URC) with Partners for Development (PfD) and other NGOs involved in malaria control.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has awarded University Research Co., LLC (URC) a new, five-year cooperative agreement to support the national tuberculosis (TB) and multi-drug resistant TB program in Georgia.   The project will facilitate implementation of strategies to improve case detection and strengthen and expand treatment for TB. 

The Translating Research into Action (TRAction) Project, which is funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), hosted a special event today to launch its support for research to tackle household air pollution. TRAction, managed by Bethesda-based University Research Co, LLC, is overseeing research to guide interventions to reduce pollution exposure.

Today, Cambodia’s Department of Planning and Health Information (DPHI) of the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Better Health Services Project (BHS) officially launched the national Health Management Information System (HMIS) database: www.hiscambodia.org. The web-based database collects and stores health information from health facilities at all health system levels nationwide, facilitating effective public health programming and responsive health policies.

On a recent auditing assignment, URC’s Program Development Associate Maria Patrocollo-Emerson and Ms. Aida Olkkonen, Associate Director of the Program Support Team, brought along items you might expect them to need to perform audits and verify data: paper and pens to record entries, a list of questions, and a laptop. But there were other items, too: sunscreen, anti-malaria medication, and clothing appropriate for traveling by canoe.

This week, the United Nations is meeting to address the issue of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). According to the World Health Organization, NCDs are the number one killer worldwide, causing 60% of mortality each year. The four leading causes of NCD mortality are cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory conditions.  Due to their long duration and generally slow progression, NCDs and other conditions like HIV are referred to as "chronic diseases."

Several members of the USAID Health Care Improvement (HCI) Project, which is managed by URC, participated in the 28^thInternational Conference of the International Society for Quality in Health Care, Ltd. (ISQua) in Hong Kong, China.  HCI staff will also lead two pre-conference events. 

The USAID Better Health Services (BHS) project in close collaboration with the Cambodia University of Health Sciences and Ministry of Health held a regional workshop providing continuing medical education (CME) to over 150 health professionals from eight provinces in Cambodia from August 31 through September 2.  Participants included doctors, medical assistants, senior nurses, midwives, and lab staff.  There have been twelve regional workshops held so far. This workshop was the fifth that BHS has supported. 

A logistics management tool developed by URC’s Integrated Family Health Project, called PISAF for its French name, has helped improve how Benin’s health system manages its commodities. The President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), which co-funds PISAF along with the US Agency for International Development, highlighted the tool in a recent article in the “Voices from the Field” series.

Assessing one’s own job performance is a complicated task for anyone. It involves evaluating oneself against a standard and spotting areas for improvement honestly and repeatedly. The stakes are even higher for healthcare workers – where consistently meeting standards of care saves lives

URC’s Better Health Services (BHS) project has helped to improve a patient referral system in Cambodia so that women with a complicated delivery get to a hospital and that midwives receive payment for their work.

Afghanistan’s Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) launched a National Strategy for Improving Quality in Health Care this week, with the goal of coordinating all health care quality efforts at the national level. This strategy was developed by the ministry’s Improving Quality in Health Care Unit with technical assistance from the USAID Health Care Improvement Project, which is funded by the US Agency for International Development and managed by University Research Co., LLC.

A new study from the USAID Health Care Improvement Project shows that a quality improvement method widely used in the US called collaborative improvement is also effective in low- and middle-income countries.

Health care professionals in the Russian Federation have traditionally had limited access to evidence-based practices due to lack of internet access, few Russian translations, and difficulty obtaining translated material.  The USAID Health Care Improvement Project in Russia is helping to fill this gap through www.healthquality.ru, a Russian-language web portal.

Stella Mwita from URC’s Health Care Improvement Project in Tanzania was accepted as a finalist for the Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development, a development partnership which seeks to fund proposals that provide innovative approaches to protecting the lives of mothers and newborns in rural, low-resource settings.

URC’s Health Care Improvement (HCI) Project presented a new computer-based training program at the 7th National Symposium of Indonesia Antimicrobial Resistance Watch (IARW) held July 1-3, 2011, in Jakarta. The program, developed in collaboration with the Indonesian Medical Association, teaches health practitioners how to manage patients with tuberculosis (TB), a highly contagious disease that can be difficult to treat.

This week, the United Nations Population Fund is urging organizations to mark World Population Day, which raises awareness about the needs of our growing global population.  Later this year, the world population is projected to reach seven billion.

Since 1980, University Research Co., LLC (URC) has supported countries in developing successful and sustainable family planning programs and helped make gains in reproductive health, one of our six areas of expertise. URC’s projects in Cambodia and Guatemala provide examples of our ongoing efforts to support healthy populations.

P. Annie Clark, URC’s Senior Quality Improvement Advisor for Maternal and Child Health, demonstrated Laerdal’s Neonatalie, a newborn resuscitation model, and Mamanatalie, a childbirth simulation model at the 29^th Triennial Congress of the International Confederation of Midwives held in Duban, South Africa from June 19-23, 2011.

US Senators Christopher Coons (Democrat, Delaware) and Johnny Isakson (Republican, Georgia) visited the HOMEL Pediatrics Hospital in Cotonou, Benin on Saturday, June 5. They visited URC’s USAID-funded Integrated Family Health Project, a program that has been developing low-cost innovations to save lives of children with severe malaria. 

“It feels good under the treated net,” sang Nana Boro, Ghanaian music icon, to an audience of celebrities, diplomats, and malaria control experts at Citizen Kofi, a popular entertainment venue in Accra, the capital city. The June 15 event marked the launch of a multi-media campaign promoting malaria prevention interventions as “life style products.”

Disrespectful and Abusive Treatment of Women During Childbirth, an article by URC staff members Sarah Whitmarsh and Maura Gaughan, was recently published in the online Global Health Magazine. The article describes the long-neglected abuse and disrespect many women face while receiving childbirth care in both developing and developed countries.  URC’s USAID-funded Translating Research into Action (TRAction) Project aims to understand and document the extent of the problem and ways to reduce the abuse through grants to research organizations.

URC’s Better Health Services (BHS) project, which works with the Cambodian Ministry of Health to increase demand for and equitable access to quality health services, provided support to the Cambodian delegation to the Asia Pacific Leadership Forum on Health Information Systems (HIS). Health Information Systems are the mechanism for collecting and disseminating health data from health facilities around the country and are critical for monitoring health services and health indicators and for strategic planning and decision-making.

As part of a national campaign to improve infection control and strengthen patient safety, Cambodia organized the first National Hand Hygiene Day on June 16, 2011.  The day focused on the importance of hand hygiene in medical care.  Hand washing is frequently a low priority for health providers, but can significantly lower the rates of hospital-acquired infections.  

On June 16, 1971, thousands of South African school children protested the inferiority of their education and the right to be taught in their native languages, and many were killed or injured for speaking out. Since then, advocates mark June 16^th, the Day of the African Child, by calling attention to the need to improve the lives of African children. This feature highlights one way URC works to address the needs of African children.

Primarily considered a problem of developed countries until recently, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of global mortality, with 80% of this mortality occurring in low- and middle-income countries. Overall, NCDs are responsible for 60% of the world’s deaths, killing 36 million people annually.

Several URC staff presented the Global Health Council’s 38th Annual International Conference on Global Health in June 2011.  The theme of the conference was “Securing a Healthier Future in a Changing World” and sessions focused on the challenges of and innovative solutions to address the demographic changes that have shifted the global burden of disease.  It is the world’s largest global health conference not focused on a single disease or health area.

On Tuesday, June 14^th, a new website on community health workers (CHWs) was launched at a satellite reception during the 38th Annual International Conference on Global Health. The website, CHW Central (www.chwcentral.org), is an interactive platform that facilitates information- sharing and dialogue about how to support CHWs, who work in communities around the world providing health education and care.  

Dr. Edward Broughton, PhD, MPH, PT, Director of Research and Evaluation for URC’s Health Care Improvement (HCI) Project, led an interactive seminar, “What Cost-Effectiveness Really Means: Economic Analysis for Non-economists,” at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in Washington, DC on June 2^nd, 2011.

USAID’s Health Promotion and Communication Project (HealthPRO), which is implemented by URC, assisted the local Philippine government in creating a program for drivers of tricycles, a motorcycle with a sidecar (passenger-cabin) and a popular public transportation vehicle, to deliver basic health messages to community members.

Two URC staff members published an article, “Provider-Initiated Counseling and Testing (PICT): An Overview,” which outlines the rationale for PICT and provides an overview of the implementation protocol that will equip health care providers with the knowledge required to integrate HCT into routine medical care.  PICT is a key strategy to increase HIV testing and referrals to care, treatment, and prevention services in high burden settings. The authors included Nondumiso Makhunga-Ramfolo, the Project Director for the CDC Counseling and Testing Project in South Africa and URC Vice President Dr. Refiloe Matji, who now directs the TB CAREII project.

Stephen Okiror, a Clinical Officer employed by the Bukedea District Local Government in Eastern Uganda, submitted the winning entry in the “Best Improvement Report” contest convened by the USAID Health Care Improvement Project (HCI) during April 2011.   Mr. Okiror’s report, entitled “Improving Patients’ Retention in HIV Care through Adherence to Scheduled Appointments at Bukedea Health Centre IV, Eastern Uganda,” was selected from among 30 entries in the contest.