About the USAID Health Care Improvement Project | USAID Health Care Improvement Portal

Partners

University Research Co., LLC (URC) is a management consulting firm based in Bethesda, Maryland that provides technical assistance worldwide to improve the quality and impact of health and education programs.

Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs (CCP) of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, MD, implements strategic communication programs and conducts research to enhance access to information and facilitate the exchange of knowledge to improve health and health care.

EnCompass LLC, a Bethesda, MD-based firm that worked closely with URC on the Quality Assurance Project, making important technical contributions to the evaluation and documentation of improvement collaboratives.

Family Health International (FHI), a nonprofit organization that manages research and field activities in HIV/AIDS and reproductive health in more than 70 countries.

Initiatives Inc., a Boston-based firm which specializes in human resources (HR) management and quality and performance improvement.

Health Research, Inc. (HRI) is a not-for-profit corporation affiliated with the New York State Department of Health (NYS DOH) and the NYS DOH AIDS Institute. HRI’s mission is to assist the DOH and AIDS Institute in obtaining and administering external financial support for DOH and AIDS Institute projects and to assist in the dissemination of the benefits of DOH and AIDS Institute expertise through public health programs such as HEALTHQUAL.

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement is an independent, not-for-profit organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that works to ensure that best practices for safe and effective health care are adopted by health care providers and leaders throughout the world by motivating and building the will for change and identifying and testing new models of care in partnership with both patients and health care professionals.

The USAID Health Care Improvement Project (HCI) is a five-year task order contract issued by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to support countries in improving the quality and impact of health services. Guided by the vision that health care quality can be significantly improved by applying proven quality improvement methods, the HCI Project assists national and local programs to scale up evidence-based interventions and improve outcomes in child health, maternal and newborn care, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and reproductive health. The project also seeks to help countries expand coverage of essential services; make services better meet the needs of underserved populations, especially women; improve efficiency and reduce the costs of poor quality; and improve health worker capacity, motivation, and retention. Read more about current activities of the project.

The HCI Project builds on the successes of the Quality Assurance Project (1990-2007) which adapted approaches such as continuous quality improvement, improvement collaboratives, accreditation, and pay for performance to the needs of USAID-assisted countries.

University Research Co., LLC (URC) is the prime contractor for the HCI Project and all associated task orders. HCI Task Order 1, a three-year task order, was issued to URC in September 2007 and ended in September 2011. HCI Task Orders 2 and 3 were issued to URC in September 2009. URC’s partners on Task Order 3 of the USAID Health Care Improvement Project include: EnCompass LLC, Family Health International (FHI), Health Research Inc., Initiatives, Inc., Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), and Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs (CCP).

Country Offices

HCI is working in Afghanistan, Bolivia, Botswana, Burundi, Cote d'Ivoire, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Georgia, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Senegal, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.

Click on the map for more information about the HCI Country Offices

HCI Resources

HCI’s technical publications describe country experiences, methods and tools, and findings from research and evaluation studies supported by the project. View HCI Resources >

QAP Resources

The Quality Assurance Project (QAP), the HCI predecessor project funded by USAID from 1990 to 2008, produced a large number of reports related to health care quality improvement interventions in specific countries, operations research, and QI methods and issues. View QAP Resources >