Uganda: Technical Advisor, Referrals and Linkages - Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health

Clinton Health Access Initiative Overview

The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries, while strengthening the capabilities of governments and the private sector in those countries to create and sustain high-quality health systems that can succeed without our assistance. For more information, please visit: http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org

Program Background

Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health outcomes in Uganda remain below national and global targets despite concerted efforts by policy makers, health managers, service providers, development partners and civil society organizations. While investments in Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health have translated into tremendous scale up of essential services for women, children and adolescent girls, indicators remain poor. For instance, while under five mortality reduced by 50% between 2006 and 2016, neonatal mortality increased over the same period of time from 24 per 1,000 live births to 27 per 1,000 live births; far from the national goal of 10 neonatal deaths per 1,000 live births by 2020.

Maternal mortality is unacceptably high, with a nationwide maternal mortality ratio of 336 per 100,000 live births, indicating that the risk of a woman in Uganda dying due to complications in pregnancy or childbirth is four times the global average and above the national target of 211 per 100,000 live births by 2020. Uganda's modern contraceptive prevalence rate among married women is 35% and only 20% among married adolescents, contributing to a high teen pregnancy rate.

CHAI will implement an evidence based Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health project to support the Government of Uganda address the challenges above. The 4 year project will focus on ensuring that timely and quality Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health services are available and accessible to women, adolescents and children. Working at national, district and community level, the program will focus on equipping, and building the capacity of the health system to ably manage, deliver and sustain improvement in Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health programming. The project will be implemented in 5 districts.

Position Description

The Technical Advisor, Referrals and Linkages will play a pivotal role in ensuring functional bi-directional referral systems between communities and clinical services. The overall performance of the Referrals and Linkages Technical Advisor will be assessed based on the extent to which all referral, communication and transportation systems in program areas are functioning.

He/She will ensure that sustainable interventions to strengthen referral and transportation systems for health care are developed and implemented in CHAI-supported program areas and will provide strategic technical support, capacity development of health workers, transporters and first responders; contribute to evidence and knowledge development and dissemination; and technical representation with the Ministry of Health. This position requires approximately 40%-50% of travel domestically.

1. Referral systems and protocols

• Lead the establishment of a referral network model, including standardized referral protocols that facilitate linkages between different service delivery points in selected districts
• Attend and facilitate periodic referral, communication and transportation reviews at regional and district levels
• Support development /adaptation of Information Education and Communication material for dissemination of information related to community-facility transportation systems and emergency transportation systems
• Undertake ongoing field visits throughout districts for the participation in, or monitoring of referral, communication and transportation related project activities
• Ensure coordination and facilitation within the other program areas to connect with linkages and referrals
• Develop and submit monthly reports on client use of linkage and referral components and to senior program management

2. Community-Facility transportation systems

• Coordinate with district teams to conduct mapping and identification of local transporters, compile and disseminate local transporter registers
• Develop and adopt standard fare guidelines for community –facility transportation of women and children and prepare relevant training materials
• Lead catalytic program initiatives to support and institutionalize strategic business planning by local transporters
• Work with district coordinators and local governments to develop mechanisms for optimal regulation and collaboration mechanisms with local transporters that advance health outcomes for women and children

3. Emergency transportation systems

• Work closely with the Ministry of Health to support the process of development of emergency medical services strategies including pre-hospital care/ambulance services and identify areas where CHAI can support evidence generation
• Lead and maintain partnerships with private sector actors, including St John's ambulance services, Private hospital ambulance services and the Uganda private health care federation with the objective of designing private sector led models for ambulance service contracting at scale.
• Identify, analyze, distill and synthesize state-of-the-art technical knowledge and evidence and ensure its transfer to MOH and partners to support scale up of evidence based and/or innovative emergency communication and transportation related interventions
• Ensure incorporation of existing evaluation results, lessons learned and new knowledge in routine emergency transportation technical updates/review
• Spearhead costing analyses of emergency transportation interventions implemented in CHAI-supported program areas and ensure dissemination of results

• Any other work assigned by the supervisor related to linkages and referrals

• Bachelor's degree plus at least 5 years' of work experience

• Experience working in the private sector

• Advanced proficiency in computer packages such as Microsoft Office, particularly Excel, PowerPoint, and Word

• Excellent analytical (qualitative and quantitative) and communication (written and verbal) skills.

Advantages

• Bachelor's degree in business administration or relevant field; Master's degree in Health Economics, Business or a related field
• Business consulting experience in a developing country setting

Key competences

• Practical project management experience
• Guides subset of program/ functional development across related project areas
• Advises supervisor on effectiveness of program, systems or procedures
• Recommends initiatives and priorities within a defined program area or function
• Flexible in achieving work objectives as necessary
• Readjusts work objectives as necessary; keeps supervisor informed
• Plans and carries out individual work with minimal oversight
• Assists in identifying discrete issues
• Develops presentable insights and recommendations with guidance
• Designs approaches to collect data, improve processes and able to analyze and draw conclusions from data
• Manages the development and maintenance of databases and tools
• Presents findings from analysis
• Coordinates and establishes credibility with internal and department head level external stakeholders

PI101459621

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