Quality of care in family planning service delivery : survey of cooperating agencies of the Family Planning Services Division, Office of Population, U.S. Agency for International Development

The report addresses questions on the following areas: CA definition of quality of care, approaches to assessing quality, success stories, constraints to quality of care, future activities, and their recommendations regarding quality of care. The overall approaches of quality assurance fall into four categories: grass roots, medical/management monitoring, information and training, and method/stage of program approach. The approaches to assessing quality of care that are developed by each CA are often complementary. Some of the major constraints to quality of care include lack of understanding of client-oriented services, provider bias, and restrictive government policies. Estimated resources devoted for quality of care was between 5 and 30%. In terms of the future of the quality of care, all CAs would like to increase levels and approaches, and try new approaches and activities in the area of quality of care. (POPLINE abstract)