Consultants at Palladium Group

Palladium invites applications from suitably qualified individual consultant (one laboratory technical consultant) to provide technical support to Bauchi State Ministry of Health (SMOH) and Agencies on strengthening external quality assurance (EQA) for malaria microscopy and malaria rapid diagnostic tests (mRDT)to the States.

Early diagnosis and prompt treatment are the basis management of malaria and for reducing malaria mortality and morbidity.  The national guidelines for diagnosis and treatment of malaria recommends that all persons suspected to have malaria be tested before treatment. The parasitogical diagnosis should be accompanied by quality assurance (FMOH 2015). It is very important to confirm the presence of malaria parasite, as clinical diagnosis is poor and leads to wastage of antimalarial and could contribute to drug resistance. This recommendation has led to enhancement of malaria diagnostic capacity of most public health facilities in Nigeria in the form of personnel development and provision of malaria diagnosis commodities.

The expected outcome of a malaria diagnosis quality assurance (QA) program is accurate and reliable results generated from malaria parasite diagnosis. To achieve the above, programs should ensure that malaria diagnostic services are conducted by competent and motivated staff, supported by effective in-service training and supervision that maintains high level of staff competency and performance.  It involves monitoring of all processes that lead to provision of timely, reliable and accurate malaria diagnosis. This will strengthen quality malaria diagnostic services which plays a critical role in minimizing misdiagnosis, over-diagnosis, inadequate and inappropriate treatment and drug resistance, thus improving the overall effectiveness of malaria prevention and control efforts in Nigeria.

In view of the foregoing, and in alliance with the national guideline for diagnosis and treatment of malaria, IHP is soliciting the services of one (1) experienced Consultant who will provide residential technical support to the state malaria programs in Bauchi to plan, implement and monitor malaria external quality assurance (EQA) in Bauchi state. Provide support to the Malaria Program in the SMOH to plan, set-up, monitor and implement quality assurance for malaria diagnosis in the state for secondary/tertiary hospitals and PHC facilities. S/he will also support other malaria case management activities implemented by IHP in the state at the health facilities

This is a firm fixed price deliverable-based contract. The consultant is expected to satisfactorily accomplish the deliverables before he/she gets paid for that deliverable. The IHP Chief of Party reserves the right to confirm if a deliverable is delivered adequately or otherwise. No price change is expected after contract is signed. IHP will not pay for cost of any deliverable that is not complete, of quality or on time.

For more details concerning this consultancy and other associated application tools, please visit the link below:

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Consultancy to Cost the Kebbi and Sokoto Contributory Health Scheme Benefit Packages

Introduction

Sokoto and Kebbi states have established contributory health schemes with the overall goal of ensuring all residents of the states have access to quality and affordable health care services with financial and social risk protection.  All states have established structures and staffing for the State Health Insurance Agencies (SHIA) and have gone on to develop a benefit package that will ensure guaranteed provision of a package of health services to their residents through the contributory health schemes. To aid the implementation of the schemes, IHP wishes to support the schemes to determine the cost of providing the health services identified in the benefit package. The costing exercise will involve collection of direct and indirect “above site” costs at the facility and LGHA/SPHCDA levels respectively.

The costing study will employ a purchaser perspective, in this case the Contributory Health Scheme(s) will be regarded as the purchaser seeking to estimate the cost of covering the services in the defined benefit packages. The study will cover a sample of the government-owned secondary health facilities and ward-level PHCs in the states as outlined in the table below:

Scope of the Consultancy

The specific responsibilities of the Costing Specialist will be to:

• Develop a comprehensive MS Excel costing model which identifies and disaggregates the inputs (staff time/commodities/diagnostics/operating expenses etc.) required to provide each distinct service within the states’ benefit packages. 
• The benefit packages for Kebbi and Sokoto states are outlined in Annex 1 of this SOW.
• Participate in the training of a team of data collectors (including IHP project and contract staff) on the study objectives, methodology and tool(s) to be applied at the facilities and other levels e.g. Local Government Health Authorities (LGHAs) and/or State Primary Healthcare Department Agencies (SPHCDAs) for above-site costs
• Conduct quality checks on costing data collected by data collectors during the costing study and develop course correction strategies, where necessary
• Liaise with IHP State Health Financing Advisors on the collection of above-site data from the LGHAs and/or SPHCDAs in each of the states, where necessary
• Aggregate direct costs and allocate indirect costs of the required services to determine the total cost of each distinct service within the benefit package. Allocation of indirect costs will be based on criteria/bases agreed by IHP and the state stakeholders
• Compute the average cost of each service within the benefit package and the total average cost of the benefit package. The model should be designed to determine the actual cost and normative cost for each service within the benefit package. Normative costs should be aligned to evidence-based clinical guidelines to ensure technical quality in the provision of services and computation of full costs
• Identify wide variances in service costs across different types of facilities (location, ownership, size and type) and determine the drivers of the variances. The completed costing model containing all assumptions, input data and analyses used in arriving at the benefit package cost must be submitted to IHP in an MS Excel format
• Co-facilitate with IHP staff a results-sharing workshop with the state health contributory schemes and other relevant stakeholders to present the results of the costing study for each state
• Develop and submit a report detailing the methodology, key findings and recommendation of the costing study for each state
• Respond to questions and/or requests for information by IHP as needed during the study and inform of any changes in the timeline for delivery of products associated with the study  
• This is a fixed price consultancy which required the consultant to send both technical and cost proposals. Price does not change after the final cost has been identified and agreed upon.

Kindly follow the link below to access the full package required for the application.