URC/CHS Projects

A growth monitoring and promotion weighing session

This 60-month TASC2 Global Health contract was awarded to URC in September 2004 to support the Ministry of Health (MOH) of Guatemala and its partner NGOs to improve the management of available resources and expand access to quality health services, especially for isolated and disadvantaged populations. The project builds on the accomplishments of the first Calidad en Salud project, which successfully expanded the availability of family planning services and improved child health at the community and primary care levels.

• Participation of communities, clients, health workers and managers in improvement of health care;
• Emphasis on achieving results by using quality assurance and continuous improvement across integrated strategies;
• Scale up of successful activities to more communities, health centers and hospitals, in the highlands and the rest of the country, emphasizing underserved areas and remote communities;
• Focus on institutionalization and sustainability of program successes; and
• Fostering leadership among health care providers, managers and communities.

• Family Planning and Contraceptive Security: In partnership with the Ministry of Health’s National Reproductive Health Program, non-government organizations and other stakeholders, URC is developing and executing strategies to increase access to family planning services, especially in the highlands, and to stimulate demand for these services.
• Maternal and Neonatal Health: Strengthening and expanding implementation of the Essential Maternal Neonatal Health Care (EMNC) model throughout the eight priority departments and increasing access to services.
• Nutrition Interventions for Women and Children: Improving and expanding current nutrition-related programs, strengthening community growth monitoring, and identifying new approaches to further address chronic malnutrition.
• Child Health. Strengthening and integrating child and maternal/ reproductive health at community and facility levels, particularly in health centers and hospitals.
• STI/HIV Prevention and STI Treatment: Updating standards and improving quality of care at existing STI/Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) centers with a planned expansion of services to an additional 26 centers.
• Integration of Child and Reproductive Health Services: Increasing integration of reproductive health, family planning, maternal/neonatal health and child health and nutrition services, as well as STI/HIV services.
• Health Systems Management: Strengthening management support systems, including logistics, monitoring and supervision, information systems, and financial planning.

• Advocacy and policy dialogue. Implementation will be undertaken of well-known techniques and tools to do advocacy and policy dialogue at different levels.
• Health information systems. Proposed to strengthen a system for monitoring the NGOs and the usage of geographic information systems.
• Planning. Assistance will be given to the MOH for the establishment of a bottom-up planning methodology.
• Quality management and assurance. Support will be provided to the MOH for the establishment of a culture of quality, with concepts, methodologies and tools that have already been tested.
• Human resource development. Assistance will be provided to the MOH to update the job descriptions of key personnel and to promote improved staff performance.
• Information, education and communication for behavioral changes (IEC/BC). Support will be provided for the implementation of IEC/BC strategies and tactics, and technical and financial assistance will be provided for the design, testing and production of materials and job aids.
• Gender. Support will be given to the MOH for the incorporation of gender perspectives in all the components.