U S A I D Health Care Improvement Project in Georgia

The USAID Health Care Improvement Project (HCI) is USAID’s global mechanism for technical leadership and assistance to improve the quality of health care delivery and health workforce capacity and performance in USAID-assisted countries.The project managed by the U.S.-based University Research Company (URC). Georgia Health Care Improvement (HCI) project will address the problems in quality of clinical service delivery in Georgia. The project started in October, 2011 and will continue for 2 years (2011-2013). The project will apply a Collaborative Improvement (CI) model (developed by Institute for Healthcare Improvement in the U.S.) to improve quality, consistency and continuity of clinical care in a demonstration region (Imereti) with a strong focus on upgrading knowledge and clinical skills of physicians in targeted region in both outpatient as well as inpatient facilities. This approach simultaneously improves both clinical content and processes of service delivery to achieve reliable consistent delivery of priority “best-buy” high impact medical services leading to achievement of the highest quality of care possible. Clinical focus areas have been selected based on known disease burden in Georgia, demonstrated poor quality of care (prior facility assessments), and potential for dramatic improvements in quality of care (adult: cardiovascular disease (CVD) & risk factors; COPD/asthma & risk factors and children: pneumonia & asthma). In addition to the Collaborative Improvement interventions in the Imereti demonstration region, the project will implement wide range activities at national level to improve access to and use of evidence based medical information. The USAID Georgia HCI Project by agreement and close collaboration with MoLHSA will arrange involvement of US Diaspora Georgian Physicians in health care efforts for Georgia that would be considerable contribution to HCI project.