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A Day in the Life of a Pretest: Applying CapacityPlus’s New Health Worker Productivity Tool

An important part of any field test of a new tool is to pretest the data collection instruments to ensure they are easy-to-use and comprehensible, as well as to provide hands-on experience and practice for the data collectors.

Our pretest is in Pakgneum District, about an hour’s drive from Vientiane, the capital of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR). Our team is led by Dr. Loun Manivong, deputy director of the Lao PDR Ministry of Health’s Department of Health Personnel.

When we arrive, we are warmly welcomed by the director of the district hospital and the staff. They are pleased to be selected to support the Ministry in its field test of CapacityPlus’s new Productivity Diagnostic and Improvement Toolkit. Read more »

Answering the Call for More Nigerian Midwives

Amanda Puckett“The world needs more midwives now more than ever,” said the Honorable Minister of Health of Nigeria, Dr. Muhammad Ali Pate. On May 6, Pate was joined by stakeholders and international development partners, including CapacityPlus/Nigeria’s Chief of Party Sam Ngobua, to celebrate the 2013 International Day of Midwives.

Hosted by the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives and the Commission for Professional Midwives of Nigeria, the celebration featured the Honorable Minister of Health Pate, who encouraged women to take up the profession of midwifery and develop interests in maternal advocacy at all levels. Read more »

Analyze Business Processes Before Automating Them: An iHRIS Manage Case Study

This post was originally published on the iHRIS blog. CapacityPlus develops the core iHRIS software for managing and planning the health workforce. Over 15 countries are using iHRIS; Guatemala is one of the newest countries to implement the software. Marino Holguin is a consultant for the IntraHealth International-led USAID|Central America Capacity Project.

Marino HolguinOver the years, automation of business processes has become more and more common. More often than not, organizations dive into automation hoping that, by itself, it will improve performance, reduce costs, and ensure quality. While those are attainable goals, they are rarely achieved. The reason for this lack of results is often related to a single painful issue: automating inefficient, outdated processes produces automated inefficiency.

Many process automation efforts are driven by information technology personnel who simply are not familiar with business needs and their history. This is particularly true for developing countries’ governmental institutions, which oversee processes that were originally based on paper forms and are often plagued by numerous controls and validations. Read more »

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