Training & Capacity Building

To ensure health care practices are safe, human resources capacity is required within the health system and among ancillary services personnel. MMIS supports a comprehensive approach to capacity-building and training, recognizing that a number of factors determine actual performance. These include knowledge and skills, job expectations, availability of guidelines and standards, supportive supervision, feedback on performance, and the physical work environment.

Working closely with Ministries of Health (MOH) and partners, MMIS incorporates principles of adult education and performance improvement for intensive human resource development in health service delivery and supply chain management. Findings from quantitative and qualitative research from the initial phase are incorporated into training and capacity-building activities.

To ensure only safe and necessary injections become a professional and social norm within the health system and among ancillary services personnel, MMIS provides technical assistance and facilitation for on-the-ground training of all levels of personnel on the following topics:

• Injection safety and infection control
• Interpersonal communication
• Health care waste management
• Commodity supply and logistics
• Supportive supervision
• Advocacy and behavior change communication
• Other injection safety related topics

Program Highlights

Participatory Training Motivating Health Workers to Improve Practices in Mozambique
The baseline assessment and complementary qualitative research indicated that health units in Mozambique were struggling with a variety of barriers to safe injections. These include limited resources, lack of specific knowledge related to key practices, unclear national norms, and a systematic lack of dialogue and coordination within the health units as well as behavior-linked barriers. Based on the findings of these assessments a set of steps defining the improved practices of health providers was developed.

Drug Management Training Leads to Reorganization of Drug Stores in Botswana
In Botswana, MOH drug management guidelines recommend the removal of expired medical items from drug store shelves a month prior to the expiration date. MMIS deployed student pharmacy technicians to help health facility drug management nurses to comply with these guidelines by reorganizing facility drug stores. The goal of this effort was to ensure that the nurses were practicing skills they had acquired in the injection device/drug management training. At the time of this activity, 125 nurses out of 154 designated for drug management had received drug management training organized by MMIS. The reorganization of the drug stores helped identify expired drugs amounting to P85,888.94 (equivalent to an estimated US $19,000) in facilities operated by the district health team.