Considerations at the facility level

The health facility is where quality health services are provided to populations. This includes a wide range of settings, including small to large hospitals, clinics, and primary care centres, among others, covered by public, faith-based, private-for-profit and private not-for-profit sectors in both rural and urban areas. The health facility also covers ambulatory services and is the point of organization for community-based and outreach services.

This section of the Toolkit contains further information and links to tools that support the following functions at the facility level:

These functions will apply to a range of stakeholders at the facility level, from administrative management/support to middle management in clinical departments, to health workers interacting directly with patients, as well as quality improvement teams. The tools in this level will help you to consider and implement activities that support improving quality of care at the facility level.

These tools help in the development of action plans related to identified aims to improve quality of care. The tools are useful to support important activities at the facility level for improving quality of health services at the point of care that are described in the Quality health services: a planning guide. It describes how facility leaders:

• commit to district aims and identify clear facility improvement aim(s);
• establish, organize and support multidisciplinary quality improvement (QI) teams to prepare for action;
• conduct situational analysis/baseline assessment to identify gaps;
• adopt standards of care;
• identify QI activities and develop an action plan;
• implement the QI action plan;
• undertake the continuous measurement of outcomes;
• focus on continuous improvement - sustain improvements and refine action plans.