Outline of the Project

Project Name

Project for Strengthening Medical service in Northwest Provinces

Country

Vietnam

Date of R/D Signed

25 October, 2012

Project site

6 Northwest Provinces: Hoa Binh, Lao Cai, Dien Bien, Lai Chau, Son La, Yen Bai

Term of Cooperation

20 March 2013 to 19 March 2017

Implementing Organization

Medical Service Administration - Ministry of Health (MSA-MOH), Department of Health (DOHs) in Provinces, Provincial Hospitals and District Hospitals

Project Background

Training for medical staff has been considered as one of the top priority issue of the health sector of Vietnam, in which, leading hospitals at central level play an important role in promoting continuous medical training for doctors and nurses of provincial level.

On the other hand, currently, as a result of the development of market oriented economy, most skillful health workers are concentrated in big cities and urban areas, while the remote and rural areas are lacking health workers in both quantity and quality. Particularly, the Northwest Region, one of the poorest region in Vietnam, is facing an extremely shortage of medical staff, leading to the poor quality of medical services. Therefore, improvement of medical services at the region is considered as an urgent task of the sector.

Under this circumstance, JICA had supported to implement the Project for Strengthening Health Provision in Hoa Binh Province (December 2004 –December 2009) with an aim to enhance the management capacity of Provincial Department of Health reinforce the training and supervision from provincial level to district level and strengthen operation of the referral system.

After 5 years of implementation, the project got a high evaluation from Ministry of Health and JICA as well. Some of the significant achievements could be named such as 1) the network of DOHA (Direction Office for Healthcare Activities) has been set up and functioned properly at provincial and district level, 2) referral system of patients has been operated among the provincial hospital and all 9 district hospitals based on the two way information system. The project had institutionalized its activities and lesson learned in the "DOHA guidebook" with strong emphasis on the application of training cycle management and operation of the referral system.

However, the DOHA and referral system are not yet reached to commune level in Hoa Binh, therefore, it is necessary to build a complete cycle of DOHA and referral system from commune to provincial level in Hoa Binh.

In addition to the strong request from Hoa Binh, the Ministry of Heath showed a strong willingness to disseminate the Hoa Binh model to neighboring provinces, where improvement of medical service is urgently requested to respond the increasing needs of people living at these areas.

Overall Goal

The strengthened DOHA and referral system contribute to the sustainable improvement of medical services in Northern mountainous provinces

Project Purpose

DOHA and referral system in the target provinces are strengthened

Outputs

• 1. Managerial capacity of the MOH on DOHA is strengthened to expand the Hoa Binh model to target provinces
• 2. Referral system from the commune to district and provincial hospitals in Hoa Binh Province is established
• 3. Managerial capacity on DOHA and referral system is strengthened between the provincial hospital (s) and district hospital in Son La, Lai Chau, Dien Bien, Lao Cai and Yen Bai

DOHA Network Model