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  • Title: Medical oversight in family planning programs: helping providers continuously improve quality.
    Author: Harper PB.
    Journal: AVSC News; 1993 Oct; 31(3):4-5. PubMed ID: 12287108.
    Abstract:
    The Association for Voluntary Surgical Contraception's (AVSC) medical director discusses new oversight methods of medical quality of family planning programs. The traditional method of oversight involves outside experts making site visits, which tend to be rather far apart, to observe observations of family planning programs after which they write a final report. Staff rarely refer to the report or incorporate its recommendations. Despite its limitations, this system has set a minimum standards for safety. In Nigeria, AVSC is helping local officials develop a decentralized system that includes quality assurance. Local physicians conduct oversight, resulting in co workers being more responsive than they are with outsiders. AVSC staff in Africa originated the COPE (client-oriented, provider-efficient) program. 12 person helps providers go through a series of exercises to evaluate their family planning services. Each person linked to the delivery of family planning services has a role in preserving quality which, in effect, integrates quality assurance into the system. Teamwork to identify problems and to come up with solutions is important to continuous quality improvement to continuous quality improvement in health care. The invisible threat of AIDS is a key reason for the new emphasis on medical quality. The principles of total quality management comprise part of the continuous quality improvement. In Kenya, a nurse assigned to supervise persons responsible for disposal of medical wastes noted that the wastes were accumulating behind the hospital. She learned that the workers did not have kerosene to burn the wastes and that the instructions on how to handle the wastes were gone. 1 week long discussions led to a safe solution.
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