News from Tanzania

Benchmark project expanded to Northern Tanzania
In October Marieke Kleinschiphorst and Wouter van Dijk (Tragpi) together with two colleages from CSSC visitid several hospitals in Tanzania as part of the Benchmark project. This time they visited hospitals in Northern Tanzania.

Up to now the Benchmark project focused on district hospitals around Lake Victoria. Nine district hospitals from this region have been participating in the project. Now the project has expanded to eight district hospitals in Northern Tanzania (the regions Arusha, Kilimanjaro and Manyara). This meansthat a total of 17 district hospitals are involved in the Benchmark pojrect. In two weeks time Trapgi consultants, the CDDC project coordinator and CSSC regional coordinator visited five hospitals in Northern Tanzania and introduced them in the Benchmark project and more specifically performance  management. The project team has been to following hospitals: Kibosho (Moshi rural), Karatu (Karatu), Selian (Arushs rural), Huruma (Rombo) and Kilema (Moshi rural).

Each visit consisted of a two-day program:

Day 1
- Introduction in the project
- Introduction in benchmarking and performance management
- Jointly collecting data with data recorders and relevant hospital staff (accountant, HR-Employee, heads of departments)
- Fill in data in template together with data recorders and relevant hospital staff
- Train data recorders in the use of the template

Day 2
- Share data collected with the management team and heads of departments
- Discuss findings with the management team and heads of departments, including hospital's own suggestions and recommendations from the project team
- Way forward and define actions for the coming year

All hospitals received us with a warm welcome and much enthusiasm for the project. The five hospitals committed themselves to improve their data and performance managment during the next year. The hospitals that do not have a responsible person for data collection and analysis will appoint someone as soon as possible. Before the end of this year we will go back to these hospitals to train the data recorders in the use of the management information template.

In November the project team visited the remaining three participating hospitals in the northern region: St. Joseph (Moshi urban), Dareda (Manyara region) and Wasso (Arusha region). In March the benchmark results for the hospitals in the northern region will be presented during a feedback meeting with representatives from the eight hospitals. In June 2011 follow-up visits to these hospitals are being planned.