Assessing the impact of COVID-19 management on the workload of human resources working in India's National Tuberculosis Elimination Program.

BACKGROUND: In 1993, WHO declared tuberculosis (TB) as a global health emergency considering 10 million people are battling TB, of which 30% are undiagnosed annually. In 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic took an unprecedented toll on health systems in every country. Public health staff already engaged in TB control and numerous other departments were additionally tasked with managing COVID-19, stretching human resource (HR) capacity beyond its limits. As part of an assessment of HR involved in TB control in India, The World Bank Group and partners conducted an analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on TB human resources for health (HRH) workloads, with the objective of describing the extent to which TB-related activities could be fulfilled and hypothesizing on future HR requirements to meet those needs. METHODS: The study team conducted a Workload Indicators and Staffing Needs (WISN) analysis according to standard WHO methodology to classify the workloads of priority cadres directly or indirectly involved in TB control activities as over-, adequately or under-worked, in 18 districts across seven states in India. Data collection was done via telephone interviews, and questions were added regarding the proportion of time dedicated to COVID-19 related tasks. We carried out quantitative analysis to describe the time allocated to COVID-19 which otherwise would have been spent on TB activities. We also conducted key informant interviews (KII) with key TB program staff about HRH planning and task-shifting from TB to COVID-19. RESULTS: Workload data were collected from 377 respondents working in or together with India's Central TB Division (CTD). 73% of all respondents (n = 270) reported carrying out COVID-19 tasks. The average time spent on COVID-19 tasks was 4 h / day (n = 72 respondents). Multiple cadres highly instrumental in TB screening and diagnosis, in particular community outreach (ASHA) workers and CBNAAT/TrueNAAT laboratory technicians working at peripheral, block and district levels, were overworked, and spending more than 50% of their time on COVID-19 tasks, reducing time for TB case-finding. Qualitative interviews with laboratory technicians revealed that PCR machines previously used for TB testing were repurposed for COVID-19 testing. CONCLUSIONS: The devastating impact of COVID-19 on HR capacity to conduct TB case-finding in India, as in other settings, cannot be overstated. Our findings provide clear evidence that NTEP human resources did not have time or essential material resources to carry out TB tasks during the COVID pandemic without doing substantial overtime and/or compromising on TB service delivery. To minimize disruptions to routine health services such as TB amidst future emerging infectious diseases, we would do well, during periods of relative calm and stability, to strategically map out how HRH lab staff, public health resources, such as India's Health and Wellness Centers and public health cadre, and public-private sector collaboration can most optimally absorb shocks to the health system.

Policy gaps in addressing market failures and intervention misalignments in tuberculosis control: prospects for improvement in China, India, and Indonesia.

India, Indonesia, and China are the top three countries with the highest tuberculosis (TB) burden. To achieve the end TB target, we analyzed policy gaps in addressing market failures as well as misalignments between National TB Programs (NTP) and health insurance policies in TB control in three countries. In India and Indonesia, we found insufficient incentives to engage private practitioners or to motivate them to improve service quality. In addition, ineffective supervision of practice and limited coverage of drugs or diagnostics was present in all three countries. The major policy misalignment identified in all three countries is that while treatment guidelines encourage outpatient treatment for drug-sensitive patients, the national health insurance scheme covers primarily inpatient services. We therefore advocate for better alignment of TB control programs and broader universal health coverage (UHC) programs to leverage additional resources from national health insurance programs to improve the effective coverage of TB care.

The influence of Continuous Quality Improvement on healthcare quality: A mixed-methods study from Zimbabwe.

In an effort to improve the poor quality of maternal, newborn, and child health services, the Zimbabwe Ministry of Health and Child Care implemented a Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) pilot in 2016. Health workers and district managers were trained and supported to implement cycles of quality target setting, developing and implementing action plans, and tracking outcomes. The pilot was implemented in district hospitals and primary health centers in five districts as an arm of the performance-based health financing (PBF) program. This study uses mixed methods to estimate the effect of the CQI model on quality of care for various services and to identify factors that enabled or impeded quality improvements. We assessed changes in quality of care for seven services over a two-year implementation period and compared these changes against other PBF districts. We also conducted focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with district and facility-level health workers and managers after implementation to explore enabling and impeding factors affecting program performance. Among the seven services assessed, CQI was associated with quality improvement in primary health centers for two: postnatal care and maternal delivery care. Enabling factors included strengthened leadership, teamwork and joint decision-making at facilities; and supportive supervision. Impeding factors included fragmentation of quality assurance policies; staff shortages and turnover; and gaps in the CQI training. Improvements were limited when considering the full breadth of potential outcomes but arise in certain areas of core focus of the CQI program. In order to see large scale improvement in the quality of healthcare in Zimbabwe, CQI should be seen as one potential tool in a broader health systems quality improvement strategy.

Optimizing immunization schedules in endemic cholera regions: cost-effectiveness assessment of vaccination strategies for cholera control in Bangladesh.

This study is to examine the cost-effectiveness of deployment strategies of oral cholera vaccines (OCVs) in controlling cholera in Bangladesh. We developed a dynamic compartment model to simulate costs and health outcomes for 12 years for four OCVs deployment scenarios: (1) vaccination of children aged one and above with two doses of OCVs, (2) vaccination of population aged 5 and above with a single dose of OCVs, (3) vaccination of children aged 1-4 with two doses of OCVs; and (4) combined strategy of (2) and (3). We obtained all parameters from the literature and performed a cost-effectiveness analysis from both health systems and societal perspectives, in comparison with the base scenario of no vaccination.The incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) for the four strategies from the societal perspective were $2,236, $2,250, $1,109, and $2,112 per DALY averted, respectively, with herd immunity being considered. Without herd immunity, the ICERs increased substantially for all four scenarios except for the scenario that vaccinates children aged 1-4 only. The major determinants of ICERs were the case fatality rate and the incidence of cholera, as well as the efficacy of OCVs. The projection period and frequency of administering OCVs would also affect the cost-effectiveness of OCVs. With the cut-off of 1.5 times gross domestic product per capita, the four OCVs deployment strategies are cost-effective. The combined strategy is more efficient than the strategy of vaccinating the population aged one and above with two doses of OCVs and could be considered in the resource-limited settings.

Coming Full Circle: How Health Worker Motivation and Performance in Results-Based Financing Arrangements Hinges on Strong and Adaptive Health Systems.

BACKGROUND: This paper presents findings from a study which sought to understand why health workers working under the results-based financing (RBF) arrangements in Zimbabwe reported being satisfied with the improvements in working conditions and compensation, but paradoxically reported lower motivation levels compared to those not working under RBF arrangements. METHODS: A qualitative study was conducted amongst health workers and managers working in health facilities that were implementing the RBF arrangements and those that were not. Through purposeful sampling, 4 facilities in RBF implementing districts that reported poor motivation and satisfaction, were included as study sites. Four facilities located in non-RBF districts which reported high motivation and satisfaction were also included. Data was collected through in-depth interviews and analyzed using the framework approach. RESULTS: Results based financing arrangements introduce a wide range of new institutional arrangements, roles, tasks, and ways of doing things, for facility staff, facility managers and, district and provincial health management teams. Findings reveal that insufficient preparedness of people and processes for this change, constrained managers and workers performance. Results based financing arrangements introduce explicit and tacit changes, including but not limited to, incentive logics, in the system. Findings show that unless systematic efforts are made to enable the absorption of these changes in the system: eg, through reconfiguring the decision space available at various levels, through clarification of accountability relationships, through building personnel and process capacities, before instituting changes, the full potential of the RBF arrangements cannot be realised. CONCLUSION: Our study demonstrates the importance of analysing existing institutional, management and governance arrangements and capabilities and taking these into account when designing and implementing RBF interventions. Introducing RBF arrangements cannot alone overcome chronic systemic weaknesses. For a system wide change, as RBF arguably is, to be effected, explicit organisational change management processes need to be put in place, across the system. Carefully designed processes, which take into account the interest and willingness of various actors to change, and which are cognizant of and constructively engage with potential bottlenecks and points of resistance, should accompany any health system change initiative.

Utilization of Health Care and Burden of Out-of-Pocket Health Expenditure in Zimbabwe: Results from a National Household Survey.

In the last decade, Zimbabwe has undertaken substantial changes and implemented new initiatives to improve health system performance and services delivery, including results-based financing in rural health facilities. This study aims to examine the utilization of health services and level of financial risk protection of Zimbabwe's health system. Using a multistage sampling approach, 7,135 households with a total of 32,294 individuals were surveyed in early 2016 on utilization of health services, out-of-pocket (OOP) health expenditure, and household consumption (as a measure of living standards) in 2015. The study found that the outpatient visits were favorable to the poor but the poorest had less access to inpatient care. In 2015, household OOP expenditure accounted for about one quarter of total health expenditure in Zimbabwe and 7.6% of households incurred catastrophic health expenditure (CHE). The incidence of CHE was 13.4% in the poorest quintile in comparison with 2.8% in the richest. Additionally, 1.29% of households fell into poverty due to health care-related expenditures. The study suggests that there are inequalities in utilization of health services among different population groups. The poor seeking inpatient care are the most vulnerable to CHE.

What makes Health Demand-Side Financing Schemes Work in Low-and Middle-Income Countries? A Realist Review.

This realist review explored causal pathways of the possible consumer effects of health sector demand-side financial (DSF) incentives, their contextual factors and mechanisms in low-and-middle-income countries. We searched six electronic data bases and identified 659 abstracts with different evaluation designs. Based on methodological rigor and content relevance, only 24 studies published up to April 2013 were selected for the final review. A conceptual framework consisting of various program theories on potential context-mechanism-outcome (C-M-O) configuration of DSF initiative was designed, tested and adapted during the review. Synthesized results were presented as a C-M-O configuration for each of the consumer -side effect. DSF was effective to improve health seeking behaviour considerably and health status to some extent. The causal pathway of DSF's functioning and effectiveness was not linear. Key demand-side contextual factors which affected DSF's consumer-side effects were background characteristics of the beneficiaries including their socio-cultural beliefs, motivations, and level of health awareness. At the supply-side, service availability status and provider incentives were contextual determinants. The mechanisms which enabled the interaction of contextual influence were consumer and provider accountability and consumer trust on providers. In order to enhance DSF programs' effectiveness, their design and implementation should carefully consider the potential contextual elements that may influence the causal pathways. Significance for public healthThis article focuses on a rare topic i.e. Realist Review, which is an emerging concept to explore causal factors behind every intervention that make it effective or ineffective. This manuscript is a first attempt on a Realist Review of health sector demand-side financing (DSF) in a number of low-and middle-income countries. DSF is a widely employed health promotion strategy in many countries to improve health seeking behaviour. However, the existing evidence explores only its effectiveness and not the determinants of its effectiveness. It is also essential to understand the causal pathways of DSF's effectiveness, i.e. what are the factors affecting its effectiveness. This Realist Review attempts to explore the causal pathways of effectiveness of many prominent DSF initiatives in the world. The study findings have policy implications and will be widely referred to in future.

Health sector demand-side financial incentives in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review on demand- and supply-side effects.

Demand-side financial incentive (DSF) is an emerging strategy to improve health seeking behavior and health status in many low- and middle-income countries. This narrative synthesis assessed the demand- and supply-side effects of DSF. Forty one electronic data bases were searched to screen relevant experimental and quasi-experimental study designs. Out of the 64 selected papers, 28 were eligible for this review and they described 19 DSF initiatives across Asia, Africa and Latin America. There were three categories of initiatives, namely long-run multi-sectoral programs or LMPs (governmental); long-run health-exclusive programs (governmental); and short-run health-exclusive initiatives (both governmental and non-governmental). Irrespective of the nature of incentives and initiatives, all DSF programs could achieve their expected behavioral outcomes on healthcare seeking and utilization substantially. However, there existed a few negative and perverse outcomes on health seeking behavior and DSF's impact on continuous health seeking choices (e.g. bed net use and routine adult health check-ups) was mixed. Their effects on maternal health status, diarrhea, malaria and out-of-pocket expenditure were under-explored; while chronic non-communicable diseases were not directly covered by any DSF programs. DSF could reduce HIV prevalence and child deaths, and enhance nutritional and growth status of children. The direction and magnitude of their effects on health status was elastic to the evaluation design employed. On health system benefits, despite prioritizing on vulnerable groups, DSF's substantial effect on the poorest of the poor was mixed compared to that on the relatively richer groups. Though DSF initiatives intended to improve service delivery status, many could not optimally do so, especially to meet the additionally generated demand for care. Causal pathways of DSF's effects should be explored in-depth for mid-course corrections and cross-country learning on their design, implementation and evaluation. More policy-specific analyses on LMPs are needed to assess how 'multi-sectoral' approaches can be cost-effective and sustainable in the long run compared to 'health exclusive' incentives.