Connecting Clinics and Communities
See Karma Health’s commitment to Rajpur Model in 2018/19
In 2017/18, Karma Health was able to improve the clinical services provided by a strengthened Rajpur Community Clinic and started community-based initiatives. We were also able to pilot digitization of healthcare information. You can read more about it in our Annual Progress Report 2017/18.
Our Commitments for 2018/19
As we continue building on the trust we have earned, learn from our mistakes, and continue to dream bigger to ensure dignified healthcare for all, here are our commitments for 2018/19.
A. Upgrading the government health clinic into a primary hospital:
Encouraged by the services we were able to add, we believe we will be able to set up a trusted healthcare facility that has the basic setup to provide primary health services in the municipality. Moving ahead here are our plans for Clinical Care for the coming year.
- Standardize provision of services:
Budget Need: LOW, Engagement Need: HIGH
One of the main problems faced by rural health workers is a guideline for standard care. Local culture and chronic inadequacy of essential drugs and supplies have created unique ‘norms’ for management of many clinical conditions. Partnership with the Ministry of Health, other organizations is crucial to outline the standard of clinical care.
Similarly, an account of how to best provide available services, the workflows, and guidelines, are important to ensure smooth operations of services.
This will be a priority for us in the upcoming year.
2. X-ray Machine:
Budget Need: MEDIUM, Engagement Need: MEDIUM
X-ray is one of the basic diagnostic tools needed for a well-functioning clinic. This is a priority for the next year. We will engage with the Municipality and central government to get one for the clinic this year.
3. 24*7 Care at the Clinic:
Budget Need: HIGH, Engagement Need: HIGH
Setting up Emergency services in Rajpur Community Clinic will help the community receive care and greatly increase the trust towards the clinic. Similarly, ensuring the presence of MBBS, Staff Nurses will need finding ones willing to work in remote regions and compensating them fairly to ensure quality care round the clock.
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Yes, we were limited by the size of our revenue to introduce all components of facility-based health care from Rajpur Community Clinic at once, but we were able to move gradually but definitely towards the direction of providing quality clinical care. Establishing and maintaining quality clinical health care is something we will definitely continue to work on.
B. Beyond the Hospital: Integrated Outreach up to the household-level
Access to quality health care is not only limited by the availability of quality healthcare. General health literacy, the knowledge that specific services are available through a given facility on a given day, the priority and urgency set for healthcare needs in relation to other affairs of life in general, the perceived level of empowerment to decide on acquiring a service, economic factors and cultural norms all blend to manifest as healthcare behaviour.
As such, we will start a separate but integrated community health program in the coming year to address some of these factors. It will include the following:
- Strengthened Outreach:
Budget Need: MEDIUM, Engagement Need: HIGH
We will introduce a mobile ultrasound service at other smaller health facilities in the region. We will also introduce the provision of routine health camps that ensure continuous quality medical clinical attention to pregnant women and patients with malnutrition, chronic and non-communicable disease conditions.
2. Professional community health workers:
Budget Need: HIGH, Engagement Need: HIGH
We will deploy Community Health workers this year so that they can educate about the risks involved and services available for diseases or conditions, coordinate care by acting as messengers and facilitators of care, and provide basic health care that can be provided close to homes. They will be compensated for their work financially and will be held accountable for particular coverage areas that include a certain number of households.
Equitable and optimal health care through data and technology:
A commitment to equitable health care requires that everyone is included in the health system. Similarly, to ensure that the people have access to optimal care healthcare it is necessary that they are provided with or channeled to proper healthcare services according to the need and severity f the condition. Both of this requires a flow of healthcare information of an individual from the hospital to homes and vice versa.
Based on this, we will introduce and improve on the following in the coming fiscal year:
- Census, Surveillance and Monitoring:
Budget Need: MEDIUM, Engagement Need: HIGH
We will introduce a population-wide census so that each individual is recorded in the system. Also, we will focus on targeted groups like pregnant women, children, and patients living with chronic disease conditions. Our monitoring system will add up to this repository to help track them over time.
2. Integrated Electronic Health Records:
Budget Need: MEDIUM, Engagement Need: HIGH
We will continue to develop facility based Electronic Medical Records so that we can provide the information to our community health programs for care closer to households. We will also start recording services provided outreach and household-based and start integrating them with the facility based data so that adequate updated healthcare information is available to the health care providers and to the individual or the population at all times. This will require technical innovation and we will continue to work with our partners to make this a reality.
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