Singh, Kavita, Ilene Speizer, Sudhanshu Handa, Richard Boadu, Solomon Atinbire, Pierre Barker, and Nana A.Y. Twum-Danso. “Impact Evaluation of a Quality Improvement Intervention on Maternal and Child Health Outcomes in Norther Ghana: Early Assessment of a National Scale-Up Project.” International Journal for Quality in Health Care 25, no. 5 (2013): 477-487.  doi: 10.1093/intqhc/mzt054.

URL: intqhc.oxfordjournals.org/content/25/5/477.full.pdf+html?sid=2c07ce39-317f-4aca-9422-83d353b6990d

ABSTRACT:

Objective. To evaluate the influence of the early phase of Project Fives Alive!, a national child survival improvement project, on key maternal and child health outcomes.
Design. The evaluation used multivariable interrupted time series analyses to determine whether change categories tested were associated with improvements in the outcomes of interest.
Participants. The evaluation used program and outcome data from interventions focused on health-care staff in 27 facilities.

Singh et al evaluate the impact of the first phase of Project Five Alive!, a National Catholic Health Service project in Northern Ghana designed to increase maternal health and newborn survival by improving the quality of health care delivery at local health clinics. Quality improvement (QI) projects have been used extensively in the developed world, but recent efforts have focused on implementing QI projects in the developing world as well. In this study, researchers found modest but significant effects of the QI project in changing patient behavior, specifically how many women sought prenatal care in the first trimester, how many deliveries were attended by a skilled birth attendant and how many underweight newborns were taken to a health clinic. Neonatal and infant mortality at the health care facilities were also measured as a means of assessing the effectiveness of the QI interventions.