Sharing Learnings from the Safe Care, Saving Lives Program

ACCESS Health India recently presented lessons learned from the Safe Care, Saving Lives program to officials of the Department of Health and Family Welfare and National Health Mission in Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra.

Thanks to government leadership, Chhatisgarh has lowered infant mortality rate of fifty one deaths per thousand live births to thirty nine infants per thousand. The government is now poised to catalyze further progress in newborn care through quality improvement.

In Uttar Pradesh, the ACCESS Health team shared the learnings with colleagues from India Health Action Trust (IHAT) and UNICEF, two of the technical partners supporting the government to improve healthcare services in the state along with the officials of the Mission Director and National Health Mission. Despite an impressive drop in infant mortality rate, from fifty seven in 2010 to forty three in 2016, Uttar Pradesh still has the third highest rate of infant mortality in the country.

In Maharashtra, according to results from the 2016 India Sample Registration System, the state has an infant mortality rate of nineteen per thousand live births, lower than the national average of thirty four. Dr. Archana Patil, the Additional Director, Reproductive and Child Health, Department of Public Health, Maharashtra shared her experience working to improve newborn care and highlighted the potential of using the quality improvement methodology of Safe Care, Saving Lives to enhance the LaQshya program in labor rooms and the quality in newborn care.

ACCESS Health has supported the implementation of Safe Care, Saving Lives initiative since 2014. The program worked with healthcare providers of the labor rooms and newborn care units of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The goal of the initiative is to improve the quality of processes in newborn care to ultimately improve care and health outcomes for babies. The program is one of the first initiatives of scale that implements quality improvement in newborn care. Having gained rich experience in four years of Safe Care, Saving Lives work in fifty two public and private hospitals, ACCESS Health is sharing the lessons learned gained through the program with other states in India. Read more about Safe Care, Saving Lives here.