Project News

On the occasion of 2 year implementation, in April 2015, mid-term review was conducted in order to verify the accomplishments as well as to find out the pending issues and give consultation and recommendation for the latter half of the project duration. After three weeks of working, the review report was finalized and presented in the 2nd Joint Coordinating Committee (JCC) meeting held on 17th April 2015.

The project commenced in March 2013 for the period of 4 years. The project purpose is to strengthen DOHA^[1] and referral system in the 6 targeted provinces. The scope of work includes dissemination of the output of JICA project titled "The Project for Strengthening Health Services Provision in Hoa Binh Province" (Dec.2004–Dec.2009) to other 5 Northwest provinces, and expansion of DOHA and referral network to commune level in Hoa Binh province.

The project was evaluated in term of 5 criteria: relevance, effectiveness, impact, efficiency and sustainability. The result shows that the 3 first criteria are rated high and the project purpose would be achieved while there are some issues and challenges in efficiency and sustainability.

Along with evaluation, the Midterm review team also has come up with some recommendation to CPMU^[2], PPMU^[3] and the project for efficient implementation in the 2nd half of project duration. Several significant suggestions are listed below: (1) development the information system, taking into account of the on-going projects in Vietnam; (2) including the indicators on DOHA and referral activities into the Hospital Quality Evaluation Criteria Book; (3) retention of experienced DOHA staff all time at PGHs^[4] to ensure the quality of DOHA ; (4) issue the circular on DOHA by the end of 2015.

In the 2nd JCC meeting held on 17th April with participation of representatives from CPMU, PPMU, mid-term review team, JICA Vietnam office and Project office member, the review team presented the mid-term review report and received consensus from all participants on the content of report. Representatives from each province expressed their expectation for software for referral management, revision of Hospital Regulation 1997 and addition of DOHA and referral activity indicators into the Hospital Quality Evaluation Criteria Book.

The meeting has become a good occasion for the counterpart and the project to confirm and share the progress of activity implementation, discuss on pending issues and raise awareness for further effort for the success.

2nd JCC meeting

Mid-term Review Report