In preparation for Universal Health Coverage Day,  global and national leaders and experts launched on 11 December 2023 The BMJ Collection on Quality of Care. Developed in collaboration with the World Health Organization and The World Bank, the Collection shares critical thinking on both the emerging priorities and unfinished agenda for improving quality of care in low- and middle- income countries.

The webinar discussed and reflected on topics in the Collection related to :

• Creating an enabling and supportive environment for implementing quality of care
• Engaging communities and other stakeholders in quality of care initiatives
• Innovating to advance quality of care

All of the articles are available to read Open Access: www.bmj.com/qualityofcare

Programme:

Welcome and introduction: Kathleen Hill, Senior Principal Technical Advisor​, MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership/Jhpiego

Opening remarks:  

• Bruce Aylward, Assistant Director-General UHC and Life Course​, World Health Organization Geneva

• Monique Vledder​, Head of the Global Health, Nutrition and Population Department​, The World Bank

• Kamran Abbasi​, Editor in Chief, The BMJ  ​

Panel discussions:

Panel 1: Creating an enabling environment for Quality of Care

Facilitated by Anshu Banerjee, Director, Department for Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health, and Ageing, WHO Geneva

•Matron Margaret Mannah, Program Manager, National Quality Management Programme, Ministry of Health and Sanitation, Sierra Leone

•Munir Kassa, Senior Technical Advisor, Ministry of Health, Ethiopia

•Selina Dussey, Acting Head, Quality Management Unit, Ministry of Health, Ghana

Panel 2: Engaging for Quality of Care

Facilitated by Blerta Maliqi, Unit Head, Quality of Care, Department for Integrated Health Services, WHO Geneva

•Bongani Chikwapulo​, Head of Norms and Standards, Quality Management Directorate, Ministry of Health and Population, Malawi

•Rajat Chabba, Technical Director, Market Solutions, Jhpiego  ​

•Minara Chowdhury​, Senior Director, Institute for Healthcare Improvement​

Panel 3: Innovating for Quality of Care

Facilitated by Sanam Roder-DeWan, Lead, Service Delivery Redesign, The World Bank​ & Associate Professor of Community and Family Medicine Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, USA

•Andrews Ayim​, Deputy Director Policy, Policy, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Division, Ghana Health Service

•Mickey Chopra​, Global Solutions Lead for Service Delivery,  Health Nutrition and Population global practice, The World Bank​

•Hema Magge​, Senior Program Officer, Newborn Health, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation​

Wrap-up: Kathleen Hill, Jhpiego

Closing remarks:

• Juan Pablo Uribe, Global Director, Health, Nutrition and Population, The World Bank and the Global Financing Facility
• Rudi Eggers, Director, Department for Integrated Health Services, WHO Geneva

This webinar was co-hosted by the World Health Organization, The World Bank and The BMJ.

Photo credits: © WHO / Fanjan Combrink

'Analysis and use of health facility data: guidance for MNCAH programme managers' describes a catalogue of indicators for maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health (MNCAH) that can be monitored through health management information system data. The document provides guidance on possible analysis and visualization of the indicators, including considerations for interpreting and using the data for decision-making.

To accompany this guidance, WHO has developed presentation and exercise materials, including a facilitator guide, that can be used in workshops to strengthen capacity of analysis, interpretation, and use of data by MNCAH managers.

This webinar introduced the guidance document and capacity strengthening materials, and shared how programme managers and partners can use these resources.

Agenda

Welcome and introduction: Dr Anshu Banerjee, Director, Department for Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing, WHO Geneva

Overview of the guidance document and capacity strengthening materials: Liz Katwan, Epidemiology, Monitoring and Evaluation Unit, Department for Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing, WHO Geneva

Panel discussion:

Facilitated by Dr Theresa Diaz, Unit Head, Epidemiology, Monitoring and Evaluation Unit, Department for Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing, WHO Geneva

• Maria Muñiz, Senior Adviser Statistics & Monitoring (Health, Immunization, MNCAH & HIV), Division of Data, Analytics, Planning and Monitoring, UNICEF
• Dr Benson Droti, Team Lead, Health Information System, WHO Regional Office for Africa
• Dr Khalid Siddeeg, Regional Adviser, Child and Adolescent Health, WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean
• Barbara Rawlins, Senior Implementation Research Advisor, Bureau for Global Health, USAID

Closing remarks: Dr Theresa Diaz, WHO Geneva

This webinar was hosted by the Department for Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing, WHO Geneva.

Every preterm or low birth weight (LBW) infant, whether in low-, middle- or high-income settings, should receive continuous and prolonged kangaroo mother care (KMC) initiated as soon as possible after birth and carried out for at least 8 hours per day.

Achieving this will require changes to the physical layout of maternal and neonatal units to enable mothers to be together with their sick preterm or LBW infants who need to be cared for inside special/intensive care units. It will also require a change in the culture of health care provision with
obstetricians, midwives, pediatricians, and neonatal nurses working together in harmony caring for mothers and newborns together in one place with families as key partners in the care of their newborns.

The World Health Organization released the new Global Position Paper and Implementation Strategy to support the scale-up of Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC). This webinar included questions to Ministries of Health about their experiences scaling-up KMC and to global stakeholders about their plans to support the scale-up of KMC as the foundation for small and/or sick newborn care in order to achieve universal coverage.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends the use of home-based records as a complement to facility-based records, to improve care seeking behaviours, men’s involvement and support in the household, maternal and child home care practices, infant and child feeding, and communication between health workers and women, parents and caregivers.

Despite the wide use of home-based records, implementation challenges persist. The guide ‘Strengthening implementation of home-based records for maternal, newborn and child health: a guide for country programme managers’ was developed by the WHO, UNICEF and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in response to the implementation needs.

WHO, UNICEF and JICA officially launched the implementation guide on April 20, 2023. Speakers presented how to use the guide to establish milestones to track progress against eight factors for successful implementation of home-based records, and shared country implementation experiences.

This webinar was hosted by WHO, UNICEF and JICA, with the support of the Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and the Quality of Care subgroup of the Child Health Task Force.

The World Health Organization and UNICEF launched on March 28 2023 the Nurturing Care Handbook and Nurturing Care Practice Guide. These two publications are the latest in a series of resources to support implementation of the Nurturing Care Framework. This webinar included an overview of the Handbook and Practice Guide as well as reflections on how they build on existing packages and can be used to enhance advocacy and capacity building efforts at regional and national levels.

Speakers:

• Anshu Banerjee, Assistant Director-General (a.i) Division of Universal Health Coverage & Life course and Director, Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing, World Health Organization
• Erinna Dia, ECD Associate Director, Nutrition and Child Development Section, UNICEF
• Bernadette Daelmans, Unit Head, Child Health and Development Unit, World Health Organization
• Sheila Manji, ECD Specialist, Child Health and Development Unit, World Health Organization
• Anne Detjen, Child Health Specialist Child and Community Health Unit, UNICEF
• Caroline Mwangi, Head of Division, Neonatal and Child Health, Ministry of Health Kenya
• Melanie Picolo, Maternal, Newborn, Child Health and Nutrition Program Manager, PATH Mozambique
• Rajesh Mehta, Consultant to World Health Organization and Former Regional Adviser, WHO South-East Asia Regional Office

This webinar was organized by the World Health Organization and UNICEF, in collaboration with the Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, the Quality of Care subgroup of the Child Health Task Force, and the Early Childhood Development Action Network.

Top photo credit: © UNICEF Perú/Hildebrandt C

This webinar highlighted the need for improved providers’ competencies to ensure high quality, people-centered and responsive care is provided to newborns, children and their families. This webinar shared findings from a formative study conducted in two counties in Kenya on the manifestations, responses, and consequences of mistreatment of sick newborns and young infants and their parents in health facilities. The 'Respectful Maternity Care Charter: The Universal Rights of Women and Newborns' was presented as framework to support health care workers to deliver quality care and empower care seekers to demand respectful and dignified care, which can be expanded to the rights of children.

This webinar was co-hosted by the Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and the Quality of Care subgroup of the Child Health Task Force.

Top photo credit: © UNICEF/UN0261809/van Oorsouw

Access the Dashboard here

A user-friendly dashboard to help countries to regularly monitor their progress and make evidence-based decisions about priority areas for action and resource allocation for children’s health – was launched by WHO, UNICEF and CAP2030. This webinar event showcased the dashboard, shared the conceptualization process and provided a vision and recommendations on the potential use and benefits of this dashboard in improving accountability for children’s rights.

Session plan:

Moderator: Dr Theresa Diaz, Unit Head, Epidemiology, Monitoring and Evaluation Unit, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing Department, WHO Geneva

Part 1: Welcome & Introduction

Welcome & Introduction: Dr Anshu Banerjee, Director, Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolscent Health, and Ageing, WHO Geneva

Opening remarks: Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General

Introduction of the Dashboard: Prof Anthony Costello, Professor of Global Health and Sustainable Development, University College London

Conceptualization journey & demonstration video:

• Dr Jennifer Requejo, Senior Advisor, Health and HIV, Division of Data, Analytics, Planning and Monitoring, UNICEF
• Gerard Lopez, Data Specialist, Epidemiology, Monitoring and Evaluation Unit, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing Department, WHO Geneva

Part 2: Using the Dashboard

Reflections: Helga Fogstad, Executive Director, PMNCH

Panel discussion:

• Dr Tanya Doherty, Chief Specialist Scientist, Health Systems Research Unit, SAMRC, CAP2030 South Africa
• Dr Kwame Sakyi,Program Director for Children in all Policies, CAP2030 Ghana
• Dr John Borrazzo, Lead Advisor Child Health, Department of Global Health, Save the Children US
   

Testing Options & Dashboard Refinement: Srivatsan Rajagopalan, CAP2030

Part 3: Questions & Answers

Closing remarks: Dr Vidhya Ganesh, Director, Division of Data, Analytics, Planning & Monitoring, UNICEF

This webinar was co-hosted by WHO, UNICEF, PMNCH, and CAP2030.

The Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and the Child Health Task Force's Quality of Care subgroup hosted a webinar to review the nutrition-specific components of the WHO standards for improving quality of facility-based MNCH care. The Network and associated WHO standards for improving quality of maternal and newborn care, care of children and young adolescents and care of small and sick newborns offers an important platform for improving nutrition care as an integral component of high-quality MNCH services. This webinar featured a technical brief recently published by USAID's MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership project that highlights opportunities to apply these standards to improve MNCH nutrition services. The webinar  included a presentation on nutrition quality of care activities in Ethiopia by representatives of the Ethiopian Ministry of Health and the USAID Growth through Nutrition project.

This webinar was co-hosted by the Network for Improving the Quality of Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and the Quality of Care subgroup of the Child Health Task Force.

Photo credit: Karen Kasmauski/MCSP, Yifag Kebele, Amhara, Ethiopia.

Inequities in sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (SRMNCAH) throughout the world mean that certain population subgroups have systematically worse health outcomes and poorer access to services and interventions. Addressing inequities in SRMNCAH is an important part of WHO’s mandate, and central to achieving universal health coverage, protecting human rights, combating discrimination and improving social determinants of health.

The Inequality Monitoring in SRMNCAH: A Step-by-Step Manual will serve as a practical, introductory-level guide to strengthen and build capacity for inequality monitoring in SRMNCAH. It will encourage and assist regions, countries, districts and other jurisdictions to regularly monitor SRMNCAH inequalities and will promote the integration of the results of monitoring as an evidence base for equity-oriented national and subnational programming.

Session plan:

Host: Ms Femi Oke

Welcome: Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab, Deputy Director General, WHO Geneva

SRMNCAH Inequities what do we know:

• Dr Christina Pallitto, Scientist, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research Department, WHO Geneva
• Dr Theresa Diaz, Unit Head, Epidemiology, Monitoring and Evaluation Unit, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing Department, WHO Geneva

Inequality Monitoring in SRMNCAH: A Step-by-Step Manual:

Dr Ahmad Reza Hosseinpoor, Lead, Health Equity Monitoring, Department of Data and Analytics, WHO Geneva

Panel: Reflection on the manual and SRMNCAH health inequities

• Prof Paula Braveman, School of Medicine, Department of Family and Community Medicine, Center on Social Disparities in Health, University of California, San Francisco, USA
• Prof Asha George, School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape, South Africa
• Dr Ana Paula Belon, School of Public Health, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
• Dr Oscar J Mujica, Regional Advisor, Social Epidemiology & Health Equity, Department of Evidence and Intelligence for Action in Health, PAHO
• Dr Betzabe Butron Riveros, Regional Advisor, Unit of Healthy Life Course, PAHO

Closing remarks: Dr Samira Asma, Assistant Director General, Division of Data, Analytics and Delivery for Impact, WHO Geneva

This webinar was hosted by the Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing, the Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research and the Department of Data and Analytics, World Health Organization Geneva.

The global virtual event launched the Ending Preventable Maternal Mortality (EPMM) coverage targets and milestones to 2025 which have been developed to support countries with setting interim targets and milestones to 2025 toward accelerating progress to meet the Sustainable Development Goal 3.1 to reduce maternal mortality in all countries.

Session plan:

Moderated by Femi Oke

2:00pm: Welcome and opening remarks - Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General, WHO and Dr Natalia Kanem, Executive Director, UNFPA

2:10pm: Ending Preventable Maternal Mortality: An Overview - Dr Anshu Banerjee, WHO Geneva

2:20pm: EPMM Coverage Targets for 2025- Dr Willibald Zeck, UNFPA and Dr Allisyn Moran, WHO Geneva

2:25pm: EPMM Milestones towards improving maternal maternal health and wellbeing - Dr Sylvia Deganus, Ghana

2:30pm: Panel discussion on Advancing Maternal and Newborn Health in High-burden Countries

Panel:

• Dr Martina Baye, Coordinator of the national program to combat maternal and child mortality, Ministry of Public Health, Cameroon
• Dr Saroja Pande, President Elect, Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Nepal
• Nick Pearson, Founder and Director at Jacaranda Maternity
• Tariah Adams, Communication and Advocacy Officer, White Ribbon Alliance, Nigeria
• Franka Cadee, President, International Confederation of Midwives (ICM)
• Robyn Churchill, Maternal Health Team Lead, Office of Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition, USAID

3:10pm: Questions & Answers

3:20pm: Next Steps - Dr Anneka Knutsson, UNFPA

3:25pm:  Closing remarks- Dr Austin Demby, Honourable Minister of Health and Sanitation, Sierra Leone