Webinar held on 5th April, 2024
Promoting cross-learning between the districts and states for exemplar primary health care models/interventions is one of the key work areas under the IPSI project. The objective is to expose the project districts to these best practices and motivate them to replicate and scale up some of these in their own settings.
The NQAS certification is an important government initiative to improve and maintain quality standards at the health care facilities. Bhavnagar district has achieved NQAS certification for more than 80% of primary health centres within a span of three years (September 2020-December 2023), while Kalahandi and West Garo Hills are at initial stages of planning for NQAS certification. Therefore, as a part of cross learning, a webinar was organized to understand the successful certification process at Bhavnagar, Gujarat.
The webinar was attended by the NHM staff, community health officers and primary health care medical officers from Kalahandi, and West Garo Hills districts. The state quality assurance Medical Officer (SQAMO), Gujarat, Chief District Health Officer (CDHO), Bhavnagar and District quality assurance Medical Officer (DQAMO), Bhavnagar were the speakers at the event.
The webinar began with the welcome address by Ms Madhavi Misra, Senior Program Officer JHU-IPSI and inaugural address by Dr Anish Sinha, Associate Professor, IIPHG. Dr Ankita Shah, Consultant, SHSRC-G spoke on the quality initiatives in Gujarat. The SQAMO – Gujarat highlighted the efforts taken by the state of Gujarat towards various quality certification processes. He described the various steps undertaken at the state level to enhance quality certifications in the state, such as ‘100 days 100 NQAS target’ and timely disbursement of incentives. CDHO Bhavnagar mentioned the measures undertaken by the district of Bhavnagar to attain quality certification.
The webinar concluded with participants asking many questions on various aspects of quality assurance. Closing remarks were delivered by Dr Tapaswi Puwar, Professor, IIPHG.