Journal Article

Leadership, action, learning and accountability to deliver quality care for women, newborns and children

Kak, Lily, McDougall, Lori, Peterson, Stefan Swartling, Likaka, Andrew, Luchesi, Thiago, Bowen, Lisa, Zeck, Willibald, Costello, Anthony, Daelmans, Bernadette, Maliqi, Blerta, Askew, Ian, Were, Wilson, Zaka, Nabila, Burssa, Daniel, Adeniran, Abosede, Tenhoope-Bender, Petra, Freer, Joseph, Tunçalp, Özge, Barker, Pierre, Syed, Shamsuzzoha Babar, Naimy, Zainab, Knutsson, Anneka

2018

Overview

The Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) are committed to achieve quality, equity and dignity for women, newborns and children as reflected in the four World Health Assembly Resolutions.1-4 These resolutions provide the foundation to reach the targets for maternal, newborn and child health and survival5 of the sustainable development goal on health, and universal health coverage. Although coverage of health services has increased, many women, newborns and children continue to die from poor care practices, even after reaching a health facility.6,7 Poor care practices are not limited to the medical aspects of care or resources needed to provide this care; research has demonstrated a disrespectful or neglectful treatment in the facilities that negatively impacts the care outcomes for women and newborns.8 Implementing an approach to improve quality of care at scale that is effective and sustainable is critical to further reduce mortality and improve health outcomes.9Recognizing the need for action, the national governments of Bangladesh, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Malawi, Nigeria, Uganda and United Republic of Tanzania, together with WHO, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), implementation partners and other stakeholders, have established the Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal Newborn and Child Health care.10 The network has agreed to pursue the ambitious goals of halving maternal and newborn deaths and stillbirths and improving experience of care in participating health facilities within five years of implementation. Under the leadership of the participating countries' health ministries, the network will support the implementation of national frameworks for quality improvement by pursuing four strategic objectives: (i) leadership by building and strengthening national institutions and processes for improving quality of care; (ii) action by accelerating and sustaining implementation of quality-of-care improvement packages through operationalizing a standards-based approach to quality improvement; (iii) learning by promoting joint learning and generating evidence on quality planning, improvement and control of health services; and (iv) accountability by developing, strengthening and sustaining institutions and mechanisms for accountability of quality maternal, neonatal and child health services that are equitable and dignified.

• Publisher: World Health Organization
• Subject: Accountability / Action / Action learning / Adolescent / Ambition / Central government / Child / Child Health / Children / Children & youth / Childrens health / Clinical outcomes / Deaths / Equity / Evidence-based medicine / Female / Health aspects / Health facilities / Health Planning / Health services / Health status / Human dignity / Humans / Implementation / Infant, Newborn / Infants / Infants (Newborn) / Leadership / Learning / Maternal characteristics / Maternal Health / Maternal mortality / Maternal-Child Health Services - organization & administration / Maternal-Child Health Services - standards / Medically uninsured persons / Mothers / National health insurance / Neonates / Newborn babies / Objectives / Operational definitions / Perspectives / Public health / Quality improvement / Quality management / Quality of care / Quality of Health Care / Social networks / Social Responsibility / Stillbirth / Sustainability / Sustainable development / Teenagers / Women / Womens health / Working groups