Facility-Based Quality Improvement Project Officer On Call Africa

Job Description for Facility-Based Quality Improvement (FQIP) Project Officer

Reporting to the FQIP Programme Manager

Location: Livingstone

Background

On Call Africa was set up by a group of doctors and international development experts, all with a shared desire to improve access to healthcare and health outcomes within rural communities. In particular looking to support communities with traditionally poor access to medical professionals and amenities – Zambia was selected due its low ratio of doctors to people. Following a consultation with the Ministry of Health, the Southern Province was selected as the starting point.

Our work in Zambia

On Call Africa collaborate with the Zambian Ministry of Health, supporting the achievement of their strategic objectives. We ensure that our work is embedded at all levels of the health system to ensure co-production takes place to develop programmes that meet national objectives, as well as locally identified needs.

On Call Africa operates at every level of the health system, helping to shape policy and design quality programmes, while also piloting and testing programmes at rural health facility, and community level, to build evidence of what does and does not work.

Through our 2022-2026 strategy our aim is to support improved access to quality healthcare in rural areas through:

• Improving access, to and quality of healthcare for rural communities
• Strengthen community health programmes
• Influence policy and practice in the rural health system
• Expand our reach

Purpose

On Call Africa is looking for a Project Officer to support the implementation of our Facility-Based Quality Improvement Project (FQIP).

Project Information

Facility-Based Quality Improvement Project (F-QIP):

Facility-Based Quality Improvement Project aims to:

1. Support the MoH towards its strategic goal of developing, piloting, and building evidence for a model rural-health system.

2. Co-develop a MOH-led standardized tool and process for rural health facility quality improvement which informs district and provincial planning.

Project Outcomes:

1. Existing and emerging standards for Rural Healthcare Facilities (RHF) are collated into a simple tool to support MoH assessments of RHFs.

2. Standardised approaches to MOH-led assessments and QI roadmap development, prioritisation and implementation are developed.

3. Strengthened relationship, collaboration and communication between district and provincial health offices to drive quality improvement and supervise and train healthcare workers

4. Evidence collected and shared to inform MoH policy and practice.

Main Duties of Project Officer

The FQIP Project Officer will be expected to contribute to efforts of project management; project delivery; partnerships; and other tasks including: Participate in FQIP and broader programme review meetings; donor reporting; internal reporting; M&E; respond to requests for information from stakeholders as required; undertake other professional tasks as reasonably requested by the Programme Manager.

The FQIP Project Officer will also be responsible for:

• Support facility- and community-led rural health system assessments
  Lead on the training and capacity building of health workers and community based volunteers
• Collaborate with other programme teams to support our holistic approach to strengthening rural health systems
• Maintain and strengthen relationships and engagements with DHOs
• Develop activity budgets and submit relevant requests and retirements to deliver these activities
• Support monthly planning and forecasting
• Coordinate and manage the collection, analysis and interpretation of field data and preparation of reports
• Support the development and quarterly updating of project implementation plans and reforecasts
• Review monthly expenditure reports and vehicle log books to ensure expenditure and mileage is coded accurately
• Deliver project activities in accordance with project implementation plans
• Coordinate periodic impact assessments and evaluations of our programmatic work in partnership with the Impact and Communications team
• Support the Programme Manager to complete reporting documentation required internally and externally
• Support programme staff to fulfil their role in respect to Monitoring & Evaluation, especially to use monitoring tools including software for data collection and analysis
• Conduct regular monitoring initiatives and produce clear documentation of findings
• Support OCA staff and partners to use M&E and other research findings to improve programme performance (outcomes)
• Support fundraising, partners and field staff to generate and disseminate relevant case studies from our operational areas of successes and lessons from our work

Experience and Technical Skills

• University degree in clinical studies, such as nursing, public health nursing or EHT.
• Public health experience
• Minimum three (3) years of experience with project implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting in the health sector. Preferably within rural health settings
• Strong understanding of the challenges faced in delivering quality healthcare to all in rural settings
• Experience in transferring knowledge (either formal training or knowledge management)
• Oral and written fluency in English
• Demonstrable intermediate skills in MS Office – Excel, Power Point, Access and Word
• Excellent knowledge of various planning tools, including log frames and Gantt charts
• Knowledge of DHIS2

Skills and Abilities

• Excellent attention to detail and accuracy
• Numeric Literacy
• Ability to schedule and manage tasks effectively, setting priorities and meeting deadlines including working under pressure and prioritising workload according to the changing needs of the programme
• Ability to apply conceptual, analytical and evaluative skills and identify potential issues
• Excellent writing and editing skills
• Strong interpersonal skills including motivational attitude
• Ability to work as part of a team and as such will be required to collaborate with staff across the organisation
• Fluency in English
• Fluency in Tonga
• Commitment to On Call Africa’s values and a working style that reflects these values