Acholi Regional Quality Improvement Initiatives Grow Stronger

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends developing and implementing national quality health service standards and monitoring the performance of the systems as one of the actions necessary to make progress toward Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2030. It was on this basis that the Uganda health sector/Ministry of Health (MoH) developed the National Quality Improvement Framework & Strategic Plan (QIF&SP) 2020/21-2024/25 with a goal of ensuring that all people accessing the healthcare services in Uganda attain the best quality possible health outcomes. As required by the QIF & SP, Gulu Regional Referral Hospital (RRH) conducted a Quarterly Regional Quality Improvement Committee meeting for the Acholi sub-region (for January to March 2023 Quarter) on February 28th, 2023. The event was held at Bapa Hotel, in Omoro district. The meeting intentions were to;

• Re-orient Regional QI Committee members on their roles and responsibilities
• Orient the Committee on the regionalization of the health Services as per MoH guidelines.
• Review the QI status and progress across all the regional districts.
• Review the previous action points and draw new action points for follow-up.
• Received updates from the Implementing Partners (IPs) in the region on what support they provided in the last quarter and what other QI support plan they have for the region in the next quarter.

The one-day event that was funded by the Government to Government (G2G) Regional Hospital Strengthening Activity. It was Presided over by Dr. Peter Mukobi (RQIC Chairperson) and Dr. Florence Oyela (Deputy Director – Gulu Regional Referral Hospital) and was attended by District Health Officers (in the Acholi sub-region), Quality Improvement Officers, and Ministry of Health representatives. Also in participation were Implementing Partners including RHITES-N Acholi, LPHS, and Uganda Health Activity (UHA). In addition to achieving the objectives of the event, the Regional Quality Improvement Committee committed to:

1. Engaging partners to ensure increased contribution towards strengthening QI in the Acholi sub-region.
2. Mobilization of more resources to enable the facilitation of all QI initiatives in the region.
3. Establishment of a uniform color-coded QI monitoring system.
4. Improve data utilization at the district and regional levels to enable QI achievements
5. Improve Partner coordination within the region with a view of leading in QI initiatives at district and regional levels