Bridging the Gap Between Emergency Response and Health Systems Strengthening: The Role of Improvement Teams in Integrating Zika Counseling in Family Planning Services in Honduras

Excerpt

This case describes how QI methods were applied in an emergency response context to improve health-care delivery during an infectious disease outbreak – the Zika epidemic that affected Honduras and other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean beginning in 2016. It describes the national-level efforts of both the Ministry of Health and Social Security Institute to strengthen health services in the context of a novel and rapidly spreading epidemic and shows the process of improving care at the facility level, through the experience of the Catacamas Polyclinic in the Olancho Region of Honduras. The case illustrates how the efforts of facility-level QI teams were supported by and coordinated with national-level efforts to develop and promulgate updated standards of care and train health workers in their application. Ministry of Health support for the QI activities included coaching support by central and regional-level QI coaches, support for monitoring of performance indicators, and facilitation of peer-to-peer learning among QI teams to scale up learning about how to improve Zika-related care.