Sarah Castle Consultancy

Human Resources and Health Systems Strengthening

Many developing countries lack adequate numbers of trained health cadres and/or personnel of a sufficient quality. Adequate human resources are part of wider issues related to health systems strengthening and policy making and call for approaches comprising transparent and accountable governance at national and local levels. In addition, improvements in service delivery and quality also require the strengthening of health information systems. These need to include robust data-for-decision-making processes which inform both staffing and commodity needs and improve access and equity. I am particularly interested in m-Health approaches to routine data collection and use and in the integration of routine monitoring into national systems such as DHIS2.

December 2017 - Management Sciences for Health: Design of evaluation framework for roll-out of the Leadership, Management and Governance programme in 9 regions of Côte d'Ivoire.
May 2017 - Care, Atlanta, Ga: Technical assistance for a DFID proposal to reinforce community empowerment strategies and health systems strengthening in rural Bangladesh.
January 2016 - Ernst and Young (US office): Technical support for review of Millennium Challenge Fund activities in Lesotho. Produced evidence-based reviews relating to institutional capacity and stakeholder engagement as well as the integration of traditional healers and community health workers into the health system.
January 2013 - Management Sciences for Health/USAID, Democratic Republic of Congo: Integrated Health Project (IHP): Implementation and evaluation of frameworks to ensure timely and accurate submission of local health service data to the National Health Information System. Challenges include poor infrastructure and communications, weak health sector capacity and frequent stock-outs of commodities and tools for data collection.
November 2012 - Concern Worldwide/Options: Development of research methodology and instruments for the evaluation of two programmes in Sierra Leone to improve health workers' motivation and performance.
November 2011 - Intrahealth International: Assessment of 'bottlenecks' to improve teaching quality at the Gao nursing school in northern Mali. The study used the innovative 'bottleneck' tool to carry out a needs assessment and to identify 'best-buys' for the improvement of health worker training.

Links

MSH Leadership, Management & Governance Project

Integrated Health Project: Resources

Gao Nursing School Bottleneck Study