Building the competency of health professionals in the Kyrgyz Republic for the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative.

Health professional competency building is one of nine national responsibilities (to achieve universal coverage and sustainability) described in the 2018 World Health Organization/UNICEF implementation guidance for the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI). Skilled breastfeeding support as a standard of newborn care is critical to the establishment of lactation and exclusive breastfeeding. This qualitative case study describes the Kyrgyz Republic's experience with health professional competency building related to breastfeeding counselling and support. We interviewed 38 key informants and reviewed national policies and international guidelines related to BFHI. The study found that although the country has a new policy reflecting BFHI global standards and guidance, the policy has not been disseminated nationally. Additionally, the policy lacks guidance on competency monitoring and verification and does not mention preservice training, even though preservice training on breastfeeding support exists. To achieve universal coverage for health professional competencies, the Kyrgyz Republic uses preservice, in-service and refresher training. However, the main limitations to aligning with the new guidance are a lack of preservice BFHI- and breastfeeding-specific curricula, experienced trainers and sufficient time and funding to dedicate to practical skill development. Conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study confirmed disruptions to BFHI training and service delivery but also documents the Kyrgyz Republic's resilient strides to mitigate impacts on breastfeeding support through facility-level individual champions and adjustments to training such as going online. Opportunities exist for strengthening the competencies of service providers through strengthened preservice training, comprehensive and consistent in-service training, solutions for overworked service providers and clear and sufficiently funded monitoring guidance.

Implementing two national responsibilities of the revised UNICEF/WHO Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative: A two-country case study.

The 2018 implementation guidance for the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) recommends institutionalising the ten Steps through nine national responsibilities for universal coverage and sustainability. As countries adapt BFHI programmes to this paradigm shift away from traditional designation programmes, documenting and sharing policy and programme experience are critical and currently sparse. This qualitative case study included desk reviews of published and grey literature on BFHI programming, national plans and policy documents specific to the selected national responsibilities for universal coverage and key informant (KI) interviews across a range of actors. In the Kyrgyz Republic, the case study explored responsibility 5, development and implementation of incentives and/or sanctions, and responsibility 6 in Malawi, providing technical assistance (TA). In both countries, the three sustainability responsibilities (national monitoring [7] communication and advocacy [8] and financing [9]) as they relate to the universal coverage of the targeted responsibilities were also explored. Thirty-eight respondents in the Kyrgyz Republic described approaches that were used in the health system, including BFHI designation plaques, performance-based financing and financial sanctions. However, currently, there are no formal incentives and sanctions. In Malawi, TA was utilised for national planning and to introduce quality improvement processes. Forty-seven respondents mostly described provisions of TA in building and strengthening the capacity of providers. More programmatic evidence to demonstrate which types of incentives or sanctions can be effective and sustained and more documentation of how TA is provided across multiple aspects of implementation are needed as countries institutionalise BFHI.