08 Jan Can Digital Integration and Data Use Improve Health Worker Supervision? USAID’s HRH2030 Kicks off New Research Study in the Philippines
In the Philippines, USAID’s HRH2030 program is partnering with the Leyte Provincial Health Office to implement a pre-post intervention research study to measure the effects of enhancing health worker supervision by introducing digital integration, data use, and self-assessment innovations.
USAID, through HRH2030, digitized the paper-based, provincial supervision checklists into a tablet-based app and then distributed them to the Provincial Health Office. The app can also be used for facility self-assessment to institute continuous quality improvement activities at the facility level.
In December 2019, team members from USAID’s HRH2030 provided training on the app to 30 supervisors and 45 health workers (supervisees) who work at both public and private facilities that deliver maternal and newborn care and family planning services across all interlocal health zones in the province. Supervisors and health workers at 45 intervention sites will use the new app and tablets and will have the option for health workers to conduct performance self-assessments in between scheduled supervision visits. Meanwhile, 32 control sites will continue with paper-based checklists.
The enhanced supervision intervention is part of USAID’s HRH2030 research study that will examine whether these supervision enhancements improve health workers’ and supervisors’ competencies, service delivery, and/or client satisfaction. The research findings are expected to be finalized in late 2020 and will provide evidence to inform health workforce performance management policies and practices, health service delivery, client satisfaction, and data use in Leyte Province with potential for scale up in Eastern Visayas (Region VIII).
See more photos from this event on USAID’s HRH2030’s Facebook page and learn more about HRH2030’s Enhancing Supervision activity here.
PHOTO: Supervisors and supervisees representing public and private health facilities in Leyte Province of the Philippines receive tablets and training on a new app to enhance health worker supervision. Credit: Alan Blue Motus, HRH2030.