Innovations and Multisectoral Partnerships to Achieve Control of Tuberculosis (IMPACT) Project (AID-492-A-12-00014)
Country: Philippines
As one of the Philippines’ leading management consulting firms, PRIMEX, was one of the key partners of Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) tasked to implement the IMPACT project. The IMPACT project was designed to significantly contribute to the attainment of the goals of the Philippine Plan of Action to Control Tuberculosis (PhilPACT) 2010‐2016. It supported the strengthening and scaling up of access to quality TB-DOTS services by sustaining the improvements made in the DOTS program, reducing the variations in detection and treatment coverage across the project sites, and strengthening the provision of treatment of MDR/XDR TB. The Project covered a total of 43 sites across 17 regions that included 14 provinces in Luzon, 5 provinces in the Visayas, 8 provinces in Mindanao, 5 provinces in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, and 11 cities in Metro Manila. PRIMEX provided the services of a Monitoring and Performance Management (MPM) Specialist, a Management Information System (MIS)/Information Technology (IT) Specialist, and the North Luzon Team Leader, who all worked on a full-time, continuing basis throughout the project duration. Overall, PRIMEX supported IMPACT as the project monitoring and evaluation technical backstop as well as experts in providing local capacity support to effective project implementation. PRIMEX specialists spearheaded the development of a standard monitoring and mentoring guide specific to IMPACT’s various technical assistance packages and trained area facilitators including DOH regional/provincial TB coordinators to use the tool for monitoring and mentoring visits. A total of 909 facility visits were conducted by Year 5 of the project. At the end of each visit, findings and locally appropriate interventions were discussed with the rural health units. The lessons learned and recommendations were presented to the National TB Program (NTP). At the conclusion of PhilPACT period in 2016, four IMPACT technical specialists (including PRIMEX) assisted as members of the technical writing group that was convened by the DOH to develop next medium-term TB plan for 2017-2022, the Philippine Strategic TB Elimination Plan (PhilSTEP).