BackgroundCommunity health workers (CHWs) are an increasingly important component of health systems and programs. Despite the recognized role of supervision in ensuring CHWs are effective, supervision is often weak and under-supported. Little is known about what constitutes adequate supervision and how different supervision strategies influence performance, motivation, and retention.ObjectiveTo determine the impact of supervision strategies used in low- and middle-income countries and discuss implementation and feasibility issues with a focus on CHWs.DesignA search of peer-reviewed, English language articles evaluating health provider supervision strategies was conducted through November 2013. Included articles evaluated the impact of supervision in low- or middle-income countries using a controlled, pre-/post- or observational design. Implementation and feasibility literature included both peer-reviewed and gray literature.ResultsA total of 22 impact papers were identified. Papers were from a range of low- and middle-income countries addressing the supervision of a variety of health care providers. We classified interventions as testing supervision frequency, the supportive/facilitative supervision package, supervision mode (peer, group, and community), tools (self-assessment and checklists), focus (quality assurance/problem solving), and training. Outcomes included coverage, performance, and perception of quality but were not uniform across studies. Evidence suggests that improving supervision quality has a greater impact than increasing frequency of supervision alone. Supportive supervision packages, community monitoring, and quality improvement/problem-solving approaches show the most promise; however, evaluation of all strategies was weak.ConclusionFew supervision strategies have been rigorously tested and data on CHW supervision is particularly sparse. This review highlights the diversity of supervision approaches that policy makers have to choose from and, while choices should be context specific, our findings suggest that high-quality supervision that focuses on supportive approaches, community monitoring, and/or quality assurance/problem solving may be most effective.

Abstractobjectives To assess the extent of socio-economic inequity in coverage and timeliness of key childhood immunisations in Ghana.methods Secondary analysis of vaccination card data collected from babies born between January 2008 and January 2010 who were registered in the surveillance system supporting the ObaapaVita and Newhints Trials was carried out. 20 251 babies had 6 weeks' follow-up, 16 652 had 26 weeks' follow-up, and 5568 had 1 year's follow-up. We performed a descriptive analysis of coverage and timeliness of vaccinations by indicators for urban/rural status, wealth and educational attainment. The association of coverage with socio-economic indicators was tested using a chi-square-test and the association with timeliness using Cox regression.results Overall coverage at 1 year of age was high (>95%) for Bacillus Calmette-Gu erin (BCG), all three pentavalent diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus-haemophilus influenzae B-hepatitis B (DPTHH) doses and all polio doses except polio at birth (63%). Coverage against measles and yellow fever was 85%. Median delay for BCG was 1.7 weeks. For polio at birth, the median delay was 5 days; all other vaccine doses had median delays of 2-4 weeks. We found substantial health inequity across all socioeconomic indicators for all vaccines in terms of timeliness, but not coverage at 1 year. For example, for the last DPTHH dose, the proportion of children delayed more than 8 weeks were 27% for urban children and 31% for rural children (P < 0.001), 21% in the wealthiest quintile and 41% in the poorest quintile (P < 0.001), and 9% in the most educated group and 39% in the least educated group (P < 0.001). However, 1-year coverage of the same dose remained above 90% for all levels of all socio-economic indicators.conclusions Ghana has substantial health inequity across urban/rural, socio-economic and educational divides. While overall coverage was high, most vaccines suffered from poor timeliness. We suggest that countries achieving high coverage should include timeliness indicators in their surveillance systems.

This study suggests a number of themes for future research. These include testing and improving: the validity and reliability of performance indicators, especially related to avoidable mortality and other outcome indicators; the effectiveness and efficiency of embedding performance indicators in the various governance, monitoring and management models, and their effect on health systems, services and professionals; and the effectiveness and efficiency of linking performance indicators to other national and international strategies and policies such as accreditation and certification, practice guidelines, audits, quality systems, patient safety strategies, national standards on volume and/or quality, public reporting, pay-for-performance and patient/consumer involvement. The field would benefit from strengthening the clearinghouse function for research findings, training of researchers and appropriate scientific publication media. Results should be systematically shared with policy-makers and managers, and networking stimulated between the growing number of regional and national institutes involved in quality measurement and reporting.

BackgroundGlobally, about 350.000 women die every year from pregnancy related causes and more than half of these deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Approximately 12% of the maternal deaths are associated with hypertensive disorders in pregnancy such as pregnancy induced hypertension (PIH). However, very little is known about PIH and associated determinants in many SSA countries such as Ghana. We therefore sought to assess rural and urban differences in blood pressure (BP) and PIH among pregnant women in Ghana.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional study among 967 rural (677) and urban (290) pregnant women with a gestational age of more than 20 weeks. PIH was defined as a systolic blood pressure of ≥140 mmHg and/or diastolic blood pressure of ≥90 mmHg.ResultsWomen in urban Ghana had a higher mean systolic and diastolic BP than women in rural Ghana (105/66 mmHg versus 102/61 mmHg, p < 0.001 for both systolic and diastolic BP). The prevalence of PIH was also higher in urban Ghana (3.1%) than in rural Ghana (0.4%) (p = 0.014). The urban and rural difference in mean diastolic blood pressure persisted even after adjustments for the study characteristics in a linear regression model. In both rural and urban Ghana, BMI, heart rate and a family history of hypertension were independently associated with BP.ConclusionOur findings suggest higher mean BP levels and PIH in urban Ghana than in rural Ghana. BMI was independently related to high BP. Left unchecked, the increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity in Ghana will exacerbate PIH levels in Ghana.

A World Health Organization (WHO)/United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) (2009) joint statement recommended home visits by community-based agents as a strategy to improve newborn survival, based on promising results from Asia. This article presents detailed evaluation of community volunteer assessment and referral implemented within the Ghana Newhints home visits cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT). It highlights the lessons learned to inform implementation/scale-up of this model in similar settings. The evaluation used a conceptual framework adopted for increasing access to care for sick newborns and involves three main steps, each with a specific goal and key requirements to achieving this. These steps are: sick newborns are identified within communities and referred; families comply with referrals and referred babies receive appropriate management at health facilities. Evaluation data included interviews with 4006 recently delivered mothers; records on 759 directly observed volunteer assessments and 52 validation of supervisors’ assessments; newborn care quality assessment in 86 health facilities and in-depth interviews (IDIs) with 55 mothers, 21 volunteers and 15 health professionals. Assessment accuracy of volunteers against supervisors and physician was assessed using Kappa (agreement coefficient). IDIs were analysed by generating and indexing into themes, and exploring relationships between themes and their contextual interpretations. This evaluation demonstrated that identifying, understanding and implementing the key requirements for success in each step of volunteer assessment and referrals was pivotal to success. In Newhints, volunteers (CBSVs) were trusted by families, their visits were acceptable and they engaged mothers/families in decisions, resulting in unprecedented 86% referral compliance and increased (55–77%) care seeking for sick newborns. Poor facility care quality, characterized by poor health worker attitudes, limited the mortality reduction. The important implication for future implementation of home visits in similar settings is that, with 100% specificity but 80% sensitivity of referral decisions, volunteers might miss some danger signs but if successful implementation must translate into mortality reductions, concurrent improvement in facility newborn care quality is imperative.

Clinical practice guidelines are used widely to improve the quality of primary health care in different health systems, including those of low-income countries. Often developed at international level and adapted to national contexts to increase the feasibility of effective uptake, guideline initiatives aim to transfer global scientific knowledge into local practice. The WHO's Practical Approach to Lung Health (PAL) is an example of such an initiative and is currently being developed to improve the quality of care for youths and adults with respiratory diseases. We assessed ex-ante the feasibility of successful implementation of PAL in a pilot programme in rural Nepal, studying three components: the quality of the innovation (i.e. the guidelines), the effectiveness of the implementation strategy (i.e. training) and the receptiveness of the social system of health staff at all levels (i.e. social and organizational characteristics). We assessed the guideline innovation with the AGREE instrument for guidelines, the intended implementation strategy by critical comparison with literature on effective strategies, and the social system with both a stakeholder analysis and a descriptive analysis of the health care system at district level. This ex-ante assessment of an adaptive local implementation of international WHO guidelines showed that in July 2002 the 'implementability' of the package was challenged on the three components studied. To increase the chances of successful implementation, the national guideline development process should be improved and the implementation strategy needs to be upgraded. In order to successfully transfer global knowledge into local practice, we need to develop additional multifactorial sustained interventions that tackle other culture-specific and health system-specific barriers as well. The primary health workers are key informants for these barriers.

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