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PHCR builds capacity within its walls

In the fall of 2009, PHCR welcomed the newest member of its staff. Mikhail Melikov recently graduated from the Masters in Public Health program at American University of Armenia, one of PHCRs implementing partners. Mr. Melikov heard about PHCR when Lusine Aydinyan, PHCR’s Team Leader for Healthcare Finance, was a guest lecturer in his Comparative Health Systems course. He found many aspects of the project very appealing, specifically promoting performance indicators and pay for performance. It was the first time he had heard of pay for performance and thus piqued his interest. After graduating, he contacted the project to see how he could become involved, and was offered the intern role he now fills. He has been working with the Healthcare Finance team helping out with implementation of the MIDAS 3 software and analyzing data for the 2008 Household Survey to calculate the proportion of households who fell under impoverishment curve because of health/catastrophic expenditures. He has also been able to attend some of the trainings provided by PHCR and assists the team by calculating participant scores. Before his tenure is complete, he will help prepare reports on the MIDAS 3 training and his experience working with the team. He hopes the experience will build his capacity to help Armenians achieve improved health status by increasing affordable access to care. Mr. Melikov has a PhD in Pedagogy and teaches 2 days each week at the State University of Pedagogy. He is also a retired professional tennis player.

Written by Katie Qutub, MPH
Senior Development Specialist
Emerging Markets Group, Ltd.
A Cardno Group Company



MOH and PHCR Implement Stage 2 of Quality Assurance in Primary Healthcare Program

November 3, 2009. Forty-eight Quality Coordinators (QCs) and representatives of Yerevan State Medical University, National Institute of Health, and Ministry of Health were trained during the Stage 2 implementation of the nationwide Quality Assurance in Primary Healthcare (QA in PHC) Program. The five-day training course included clinical training on Job Aids (Quick Reference Guides for managing a number of most common diseases), as well as training on certain QA tools, which describe practical means of QA implementation.

The QCs, who are key actors in implementing the QA program, started Stage 2 implementation training for representatives of 139 larger PHC facilities (those with three or more PHC physicians). Overall, 26 training courses are envisaged to be conducted by 45 QCs by December 10, 2009. This training is followed by QC post-training supportive visits to PHC facilities assigned to them, to support actual implementation of the QA tools. A total of 556 supportive visits are to be made by QCs by March 11, 2010.

The QA in PHC Program, which is a systemic nationwide initiative to improve quality of healthcare services at the PHC level, is implemented by the Ministry of Health and USAID Primary Healthcare Reform Project (PHCR) since it was officially launched in February 2009. The first stage of the Program was implemented during February-August 2009. It included training of all QCs and representatives of the 139 facilities in the first set of three QA tools, as well as follow-up supportive visits of QCs to their assigned facilities.

QA materials (QA manuals, tools, templates, forms, clinical Job Aids, etc) are available on PHCR website here.

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Project Overview

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Primary Healthcare Reform Project is a five-year (2005-2010) program funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under contract awarded in September 2005 to Emerging Markets Group, Ltd. (EMG). The primary objective of the Project is the increased utilization of sustainable, high-quality primary healthcare services in Armenia.

The Project is implemented in Yerevan and marzes according to the roll-out plan.

All PHCR Project activities are grouped into six core components:

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