Zambia Expands Leadership Training Nationwide for Rural Nurses and Midwives

January 04, 2018Last month, the Board of Education in Zambia approved a nationwide scale-up of the Primary Health Care to Communities (PHC2C) Certification in Leadership and Management Practice for all nurses and midwives who lead frontline teams in rural health facilities. This cross-cadre, continuing professional development program is designed to help facility heads manage effectively through team-based approaches that help them deliver high-quality, people-centered primary health care.Improving primary health care at the community level is crucial to achieving Zambia ’s goal of universal health coverage, and the country has made significant investments in developing its community health workforce. In about 60% of rural facilities, a nurse or midwife functions as the facility head and oversees community health efforts.Nurses —when equipped with the right skills and support—can serve as the lynchpin of effective community health programs.But preservice nursing and midwifery training in Zambia has not generally covered the practical leadership and management skills these facility heads need to effectively align and integrate the contributions of community members, volunteers, community health workers, and facility staff as they all work to provide accessible, acceptable, affordable, and high-quality care.This lack of alignment can lead to inefficiencies, quality issues, low accountability, and inadequate returns on community health workforce investments. The certificat...

Source: IntraHealth International - January 4, 2018 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: intrahealth Source Type: news