Participant Guidelines: Integrated Health Facility Assessment

The assessment aims to evaluate the quality of care provided to children at health facilities, with a focus on the management of common childhood illnesses such as diarrhea, fever, malaria, and acute respiratory tract infections. The assessment will be conducted using four survey instruments: the Observation Checklist—Sick Child, the Exit Interview—Sick Child, the Health Care Worker Interview, and the Equipment and Supplies Checklist. The survey will be conducted in the most common local language, and surveyors will need to practice administering the survey in English and the local language. The survey will be conducted in designated areas, with a total of X health facilities, X hospital(s), X health center(s), and X health stations to be visited. Each survey team will comprise three individuals: one supervisor and two surveyors. The survey teams will be selected during the training week, and an attempt will be made to balance teams according to the skills of the participants. Data collection will be conducted during the week following training, with survey teams departing for the field on Sunday and returning on Friday. Each team will visit one health facility per day, and it is essential to allocate facilities that are relatively accessible to each other. The survey team should arrive at the health facility before the morning consultation session begins and introduce themselves to the health worker in charge. The supervisor is responsible for selecting children to include in the survey as they present to the health facility. All children under 5 years of age presenting to the health facility during the survey period whose caretakers describe them as having fever/malaria, cough/difficulty breathing/pneumonia, or diarrhea/vomiting are included in the sample. The assessment will evaluate various aspects of health facility practice, including the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of children with common childhood illnesses, the screening and vaccination of women and children against common vaccine-preventable diseases, and the quality of training and supervision received by health workers. The findings of the assessment will be used by health workers, regional medical officers, and Ministry of Health staff to plan strategies for improving the delivery of primary health care. The survey team should follow a specific protocol when conducting the assessment, including identifying the health worker responsible for seeing sick children, deciding how and where sick children can be identified for inclusion in the sample, and selecting a suitable place for interviewing caretakers. The team should also ensure that health workers understand that they should not change their routine practice during the assessment. The assessment will provide valuable insights into the quality of care provided to children at health facilities and will inform strategies for improving the delivery of primary health care. The findings of the assessment will be used to identify areas for improvement and to develop targeted interventions to address the needs of children and their families.