Improving Infection Prevention in Maternal Child Health Services

In October 2009, the Campo Verde decentralized health team in Ucayali, Peru, completed a process of measuring performance improvement in maternal child health services. Based on their analysis, infection prevention was identified as a critical area for improvement with a range of 0-33% compliance with best practices. This is due in large part to inadequate hand washing, poor decontamination and disinfection procedures, inadequate waste disposal mechanisms, and an overall lack of motivation for compliance among personnel. To address these compliance issues and improve services, the team implemented a quality improvement plan that included developing competencies in infection prevention and bio safety measures, with technical assistance from USAID Peru's Quality Healthcare project.

Eight months later, sixty health providers comply with bio safety standards applying a user-friendly performance improvement methodology and show a positive attitude towards infection prevention. Now clinic users benefit from services that are cleaner, safer, more organized, and have proper signage. Since the quality improvement plan was introduced, compliance with best practices has increased 70%.

Steps are now being taken to make this process sustainable and replicable and the Regional Health Directorate has modified its logistics product list guaranteeing the provision of materials and supplies for clinics. The Directorate is committed to extending this experience to other decentralized health teams counting on the competent, empowered and motivated facilitators who are now trained. Campo Verde has become a national referral site in infection prevention and is providing technical assistance to other regional directorates.