Project evaluation : Poland/project HOPE OPG (no. 1-0001)

PES summarizes an attached final report which covers 9/82-3/85 and is based on document review, site visits to 6 recipient hospitals, and interviews with U.S. embassy and project personnel, Polish health authorities, and a representative of the Catholic Church. The project has, overall, been a success, although the lack of strictly defined objectives and appropriate baseline data makes it impossible to quantify its effectiveness, efficiency, or the extent to which its goals were achieved. HOPE provided a significant amount of essential medical supplies and equipment to 24 hospitals (5 more than planned), and its management of needs assessments and commodity procurement and delivery was satisfactory. Orientation/training seminars at recipient hospitals, oriented to the equipment supplied under the project, were particularly well received and praised by hospital administrators as the project"s most valuable long-term contribution to maternal/child health. In addition, instructional materials in Polish were well received and distributed to practitioners in non-recipient hospitals as well. Lessons learned are: (1) Standard principles of A.I.D. project design should be followed, to include quantified objectives and plans for implementation and outside evaluations. (2) Hospital-specific percentage of need targets for commodities and explicit lists for procurement of well-defined "essential" commodities should be prepared for each recipient hospital. (3) Appropriate rapid feedback systems to correct commodity problems should be instituted. (4) Consultant visits for commodity assessment and verification should be timed strategically, with intervals dictated by annual procurement cycles. (5) Pharmaceuticals should be purchased in quantity and on a generic basis. (6) An evaluation plan should be developed to include interim and final evaluations, and semiannual A.I.D. site visits. It is recommended that all lessons learned be used in the design of HOPE"s follow-on OPG, in which the successful training seminars and instructional materials should be replicated.