Establishing a tracking system in human resources department to improve the completeness of personnel files at a district hospital in Rwanda

Abstract

Introduction: For decades, many low and mid income countries (LMIC) have invested significant effort to improve access to and quality of health care, with less attention paid to the non-clinical, administrative hospital management. Accordingly, a practical personnel filing system was designed and implemented to improve file management efficiency. Methods: Setting: The quality improvement project took place in a rural hospital in Rwanda. Design: A pre-and post-intervention study design to assess the effect of the intervention between January 2015 and February 2016. File auditing and time study were conducted. Intervention: A custom-made computer database to manage documents in a personnel file, standardized follow up process and policy were created and implemented. Measures: The pre-and post-intervention completeness of all personnel file and the average time to identify the missing items in a personnel file were measured to evaluate the effect of the project. Results: The completion rate of personnel files increased from 83% pre-intervention to 96% post-intervention. The average time to identify missing items significantly reduced from 6 minutes 30 seconds pre-intervention to 49.6 seconds (p < .001).Conclusions: This project demonstrates that quality improvement principles can help address administrative issues in a resourcechallenged setting. By utilizing available resources to implement an intervention that focused on creating an easy and efficient process, the personnel file completion rate has increased considerably and the time needed to identify missing items significantly decreased. The hospital should apply the same strategic problem solving methodology to conduct other quality improvement projects.

Health Professional Training and Capacity Strengthening Through International Academic Partnerships: The First Five Years of the Human Resources for Health Program in Rwanda

“…The training, research, and health service delivery activities conducted by Rwandan and visiting faculty have led to more than 80 scientific publications (Table 2). 20-100 Rwandan faculty and students have traveled to the United States to give lectures, participate in clinical clerkships, and pursue further training, while others have presented their work at national, regional, and international conferences. These activities have been funded by additional grants, not by the HRH Program, and highlight the importance of the additional academic partnerships and collaborations established since 2012.…”

“…Lastly, Rwandan faculty and visiting faculty have worked together to develop and implement new clinical protocols and programs; assess gaps; and evaluate governance, administration, and other policies related to specific clinical programs and diseases (Table 4). 22,26,34-36,38,47,50,81,82,91-100…”

An Analysis of Zonal Health Management Capacity and Health System Performance: Ethiopia Primary Healthcare Transformation Initiative

“…[1][2][3][4][5] There is a growing body of evidence related to interventional approaches to strengthen management capacity at facilitylevel (eg, health center and hospital), many of which focus on quality improvement for a targeted set of health services. [6][7][8][9] Management capacity at the district level is also emerging as a lynchpin for primary healthcare system performance based on cross-sectoral studies 6,10 However, scaling-up of the proven facility-and district-level capacity building interventions, many of which include mentorship, coaching, or education as a key component, is costly and requires significant time to reach all geographies (for example, there are over 750 districts Ethiopia, compared to only 68 zones). Further, the focus on facility-and district-level interventions overlooks the potential role of management capacity at other subnational levels (zonal levels in Ethiopia; provinces or regions in other country contexts), levels that are especially important in the context of decentralization, which is becoming more common across countries.…”

Improving starting time in operating rooms of a tertiary hospital in Rwanda: a quality improvement project

“…[8] Many initiatives have been implemented to improve the first surgeries starting time, from enhancing communication among OR team members, staff education, process re-engineering. [10][11][12][13] Among all the various quality improvement approaches like Total Quality Management (TQM), Six Sigma, Lean, the eightstep Strategic Problem Solving (SPS) is a framework that emphasizes on using data and evidence to identify https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/rjmhs.v2i3.13 solutions to address problems in health care settings. [11] The SPS framework has been used in many health care organizations and the methodology has shown to be particularly effective in resource-limited settings.…”

“…[11] The SPS framework has been used in many health care organizations and the methodology has shown to be particularly effective in resource-limited settings. [12][13][14][15][16] The eight steps of SPS approach are: 1) defining the problem; 2) setting an objective; 3) conducting a root cause analysis; 4) generating alternative strategies; 5) comparing strategies; 6) selecting a strategy; 7) implementing the strategy; and 8) evaluating its impact on the problem. [17] This quality improvement project followed the SPS 8-step approach to address the delay in the starting of first surgeries in one of the referral hospitals in Kigali, Rwanda.…”