Methods & Tools
Job Aids Symposium
Cosponsored by the Quality Assurance Project and the Child Survival Collaborations and Resource (CORE) Group, the purpose of the symposium was to exchange views and evidence about the state-of-the-art in job aids, to share particular job aids that have been successfully used in international health, and to identify future developments that will make job aids more useful in field applications for child survival and international health.
Deficiencies in health care provider performance in developing countries are due to a myriad of causes (e.g. lack of resources, low supervision and feedback, poor incentives, and undefined work processes). Regardless of the cause of poor provider performance, the traditional solution has been to provide off-site training or continuing medical education. However, there is growing evidence that these resource intensive interventions are not always appropriate.
Likewise, just as providers face challenges in implementing proven health interventions effectively, clients face a wide variety of obstacles in seeking care and in correctly following instructions for care taking. Language barriers, poor communication between providers and clients, complicated drug regimens and personal or cultural notions about care taking are just some of the barriers that impede timely care seeking and care taking. All of these can result in adverse outcomes, including low client satisfaction with services, drug resistance, and increased morbidity and mortality. Demand is growing for other interventions that might help enhance both health worker performance and clients' care taking and care seeking practices in developing countries. The Quality Assurance Project and The CORE Group are interested in innovative interventions to improve these key areas of health care delivery. This seminar focused on the state of the art in one such promising intervention: job aids. Seminar participants heard from leading practitioners in the field of job aids on the evidence of their effectiveness and practical applications of job aids for health in developing countries.
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Symposium Overview Offers a synopsis of the major points of all of the symposium presentations.
Importance of job aids in health and quality assurance
Dr. James Heiby, USAID
State-of-the-art in Job Aids: What they are and what is known
Mr. Tony Moore, Moore Performance Improvement, Inc.
Job aid development, application and evaluation panel: Examples from the QAP & PVOs
Job aids to improve diagnosis and treatment of malaria in Kenya and Malawi
Dr. Paula Tavrow, QAP
Job aids and reproductive health: improving worker performance
Dr. Federico León, Population Council
Client job aids to reduce antimicrobial resistance in Niger and use of an obstetric care management map in Uganda
Dr. Wendy Edson, QAP
Job aids in immunizations and birthing
— the PATH vaccine vial monitor and safebirthing kit
Ms. Linda Bruce, PATH
Using job aids to improve client provider communication in Indonesia: Provider self-assessment and client education
Ms. Adrienne Kols, consultant to the Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs (JHU/CCP) & Dr. Young MI Kim, JHU/CCP
How to develop a job aid: a short, roll-up-your-sleeves course
Mr. Tony Moore, Moore Performance Improvement, Inc.
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Click on the title to view and download a PDF of the transcript for each presentation.
Importance of job aids in health and quality assurance
Dr. James Heiby, USAID
State-of-the-art in Job Aids: What they are and what is known
Mr. Tony Moore, Moore Performance Improvement, Inc.
Job aid development, application and evaluation panel: Examples from the QAP & PVOs
Job aids to improve diagnosis and treatment of malaria in Kenya and Malawi
Dr. Paula Tavrow, QAP
Job aids and reproductive health: improving worker performance
Dr. Federico León, Population Council
Client job aids to reduce antimicrobial resistance in Niger and use of an obstetric care management map in Uganda
Dr. Wendy Edson, QAP
Job aids in immunizations and birthing — the PATH vaccine vial monitor and safe birthing kit
Ms. Linda Bruce, PATH
Using job aids to improve client provider communication in Indonesia: Provider self-assessment and client education
Ms. Adrienne Kols, consultant to the Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs (JHU/CCP) & Dr. Young MI Kim, JHU/CCP
Job aids technical snapshots—small group sessions on specific applications for job aids:
- A picture is worth...: Job aids for non-literate populations
- Mobilizing households: Job aids for improving caretaking and care seeking
- Bridging communication gaps: Job aids to improve IPC
- Improving health worker performance: Job aids to improve clinical services
- Sustaining improved performance: Scaling up job aids efforts
- The forgotten work task: Job aids to improve supervision and management
- New technology: Electronic job aids
How to develop a job aid: a short, roll-up-your-sleeves course
Mr. Tony Moore, Moore Performance Improvement, Inc.
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Linda Bruce is a Senior Program Officer at PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health), and has over 15 years experience partnering with local counterparts from Ministries of Health, PVOs, NGOs, universities, USAID Missions, private sector companies, and international donor agencies. Focusing on training and IEC for maternal and child health and nutrition, she has worked on interventions such as the prevention and treatment of acute respiratory infections, breast-feeding promotion, growth monitoring, immunizations, infant feeding, maternal and child nutrition, micro-nutrient supplementation, and reproductive health.
Wendy Newcomer Edson, Ph.D., MPH, RN, is a health services researcher, working on the Quality Assurance Project at URC, specializing in quality of care, program evaluation and pediatric vaccine research. She has over 20 years experience in health care as a nurse researcher and MCH program manager in Africa and the United States. She received her Masters in Public Health from the Johns Hopkins University and her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, Baltimore.
James Heiby, MD, MPH, is Medical Officer in the Office of Health and Nutrition of the USAID Global Bureau and serves as Technical Officer for the Quality Assurance Project. He is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Harvard School of Public Health, and he is trained in internal medicine at Cornell Cooperating Hospitals. For the past 15 years, Dr. Heiby's work has focused on adapting quality assurance approaches to the needs of developing countries.
Ed Kelley, Ph.D., served as facilitator of the symposium. He is currently in operations research for the Quality Assurance Project and serves as a Technical Officer for the Partners for Health Reform (Plus) project. He has a Ph.D. in public health from the Johns Hopkins University.
Adrienne Kols is a longtime consultant to the Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs (JHU/CCP) and the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH). She collaborates with Young MI Kim at JHU/CCP on research to improve the quality of client-provider communication in reproductive health care via provider training and reinforcement, supervision, and client education. She has coauthored the Population Report on "Family Planning Programs: Improving Quality," and she has also written several sections at the Reproductive Health Outlook web site (www.rho.org), including those on gender and sexual health, refugee reproductive health, and family planning program issues.
Federico R. León, Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology, University of Maryland at College Park. He has worked for the Population Council in Peru since 1987, and he has been a Program Associate since 1989, in charge of Frontiers/Peru since 1998. He has designed, conducted and supervised operations research projects in Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, and Guatemala. Major OR achievements include the introduction of DMPA in rural Peru in 1992-93, and the creation of the Service Test to assess family planning informed choice. His ongoing work is focused on empirically-based reformulation of the family planning counseling paradigm.
Tony Moore is the Founder and President of Moore Performance Improvement, Inc. He has diagnosed and cured workforce performance problems in a wide variety of industries. His videos, job aids, and training materials have been used in the construction of the space shuttle, in the troubleshooting of global internetworks, computers, and automation systems. His products have been used by manufacturers of automobiles, televisions, fiber optics, soap, paper, petroleum products, and even diapers. Moore Performance Improvement, Inc. has trained employees from Canadian National Railroad, Southwestern Bell, Pontiac, the United States Coast Guard, Rockwell International Automation, Dairyland Power Cooperative, Johnson & Johnson (LifeScan), and others to analyze work, design and develop job aids, and put systems into place to ensure continued top performance of both the organization and its employees.
Paula Tavrow, MS, M.A.L.D., Ph.D., is a public health researcher, program evaluator, and educator specializing in international health issues. She is Deputy Director of Operations Research, Quality Assurance Project, URC. Her particular interest is in incorporating the perspective and concerns of clients into health services quality improvement activities. She has over 10 years of health-related work experience in Sub- Saharan Africa. She received her Ph.D. in Health Services Organization and Policy from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
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The Quality Assurance Project (QAP) is funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), under Contract Number HRN-C-00-96-90013. QAP serves countries eligible for USAID assistance, USAID Missions and Bureaus, and other agencies and nongovernmental organizations that cooperate with USAID. The QAP team consists of prime contractor Center for Human Services (CHS); Joint Commission Resources, Inc. (JCR); and the following entities at the Johns Hopkins University: the School of Hygiene and Public Health (JHSPH), Center for Communication Programs (JHU/CCP), and the Program for International Education in Reproductive Health (JHPIEGO). QAP provides comprehensive, leading-edge technical expertise in the design, management, and implementation of quality assurance programs in developing countries. CHS, the nonprofit affiliate of University Research Co., LLC (URC), provides technical assistance in the design, management, improvement, and monitoring of healthcare systems in over 30 countries.
University Research Co., LLC
Center for Human Services
Quality Assurance Project
7200 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 600
Bethesda, MD 20814
Tel: 301-941-8550
www.qaproject.org |
The Child Survival Collaborations and Resources Group (The CORE Group) is a network of more than 35 nonprofit organizations working together to promote and improve primary health care programs for women and children and the communities in which they live. Collectively, its member organizations have presence in more than 140 countries. All members have participated in USAID's Child Survival Grants Program. The CORE Group works to:
- Increase the knowledge and capacity of members and others;
- Share resources and program accomplishments among the CORE Group, international organizations, and donors;
- Discuss problem areas and work collaboratively toward solutions;
- Ensure PVO involvement and influence in the global community health agenda;
- Raise public and donor awareness of child survival needs and activities.
The CORE Group
Child Survival Collaborations and Resources Group
220 I Street, NE, Suite 270
Washington, DC 20002
Tel: 202-608-1800
Fax: 202-543-0121
http://www.coregroup.org
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Visit The CORE Group's Website
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