Supportive supervision of HEWs providing maternal health services in Sidama zone, South Ethiopia
Nega T. Metasha, Daniel G. Datiko, Aschenak Z. Kea, Elias M. Bunte, Maryse C. Kok (2016) Perceptions on, and experiences with, supportive supervision of HEWs providing maternal health services in Sidama zone, South Ethiopia, poster given at the 2016 Global Symposium on Health Systems Research
Community health workers (CHWs) play a significant role in health care delivery. CHWs in Ethiopia are known as Health Extension workers (HEWs) and are key actors in providing maternal health care in rural communities. Access to quality health services is greatly influenced by the performance of CHWs. In the context of strengthening and quality improvement of CHW programmes, various studies have showed that supervision systems are essential to increase CHW productivity and performance. Supervision is one of the most relevant tasks in health systems management, yet health managers and other supervisors commonly neglect supervision, and many supervisors lack the knowledge, skills and tools for effective and supportive supervision.REACHOUT has been implementing group supervision, alongside already existing individual supervision, as part of a quality improvement intervention for one year, to enhance quality of maternal health service delivery by health extension workers (HEWs) in Shebedino District, Sidama Zone, South Ethiopia.
This project is funded by the European Union.