Responding effectively to the increasing complexity of the HIV and TB epidemics requires high-quality, contextually responsive, and strategic technical assistance, which provides tailored guidance to facilities, regions, or governments with the aim of effecting, managing, and evaluating change to improve health services or systems.
EGPAF offers effective technical assistance rooted in long-standing field expertise, 30+ years of relationships built with local cultural and political entities, and flexible, collaborative capacity building among clients, and our technical assistance is informed by programmatic lessons learned, operations research, novel guidance, and effective innovations.
Our Approaches to Technical Assistance
EGPAF customizes our technical assistance to properly address the needs and contexts of our clients.
Health worker and health care program management training:
Using skilled expertise and knowledge of new and promising evidence in our fields, we develop training packages, tools, and guidelines that strengthen the capacity of health workers and program managers in supported settings. Our training approaches vary by setting and cover many areas of expertise, from World Health Organization-recommended treatment guideline adaptation to novel approaches and treatment protocols for TB identification and treatment.
Mentorship and supportive supervision:
Routine mentorship and supportive supervision can be an extremely valuable, hands-on learning mechanism for health care workers and program managers, especially in the contexts of resource-limited settings where human resource challenges, including turnover and shortages, are common. We offer customized and routine on-site support to our TA clients to ensure an effective response to health crises.
E-learning opportunities:
EGPAF has adapted and developed videoconferencing capacity building opportunities to ensure highly skilled staff are linking with staff in need of skills building in various areas of health care service delivery. We also offer mobile mentorship through SMS, phone and video technology. Our use of e-learning technology enables health workers tackling epidemics in remote locations to access support and skills building opportunities.
Expert consultations:
Our experts, working hand in hand with ministry of health leaders, carry out assessments, provide recommendations, develop materials, provide training, or perform other activities relating to a particular issue on which they have relevant knowledge and experience.
Technical staff exchanges:
Our subject matter experts and clinicians are staffed throughout 19 countries. We regularly participate in exchanges from one facility, district, or country to another to see specific program innovations and bring relevant, new knowledge to other contexts to improve programs.
Topical workshops:
Technical staff members are convened from multiple locations to share knowledge and build skills relating to particular issues. We help convene and participate in workshops to collaborate on how to optimize treatment and viral suppression among children and adolescents.
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Communities of practice:
Technical staff members with similar responsibilities (e.g., technical directors, laboratory focal points, country directors, monitoring and evaluation personnel and communications persons) form groups for regular communication and to share experiences, tools, and advice.
Task shifting:
Task shifting or task sharing is used to alleviate burdens on health workers’ time and capacity by moving certain health tasks (e.g., counseling, testing, treating) from one overburdened team to less specialized workers. We specialize in training lay cadres to lighten the load, allowing more specialized staff to focus on the greatest areas of need in their health settings.
Building Technical Assistance Models
The process of building a model of TA that works begins with listening to the needs of our TA clients and ensuring we are working together in a trusted relationship. We package these TA approaches into models of health service delivery support, customizing packages to the precise needs of TA recipients. For example, our Capacity to Impact model was created to strengthen the skills of local partners to sustainably address the HIV epidemics in their context.
EGPAF constantly ensures improvement and refinement in TA services so that the clients we support can improve their organization and management, increase the human resources available to provide quality services, reduce long waiting times for clients, and be more responsive to people’s cultural, ethnic, or financial preferences. Our TA is rooted in quality improvement—wherein we test changes of improvement and scale up evidence-informed practices to truly strengthen health systems.
Much of our TA is implemented through our own country office platforms—spread across sub-Saharan Africa. To ensure the highest quality of our own services, we have developed and implemented a model of quality improvement called the Program Optimization Approach, which focuses not just on facility-level improvement of a health program but also on the technology, operations, and research.
Tracking Technical Assistance Models
The Data Informed Coaching and Supervision (DISC) is a digital tool developed by EGPAF to guide and track EGPAF technical assistance to sites. EGPAF use the DISC in Kenya and Tanzania with the select purpose to re-enforce accountability, document and monitor support visits to sites; support EGPAF supervision and mentorship team’s follow-up on site TA recommendations; and triangulate information from SIMS and site performance indicators to pinpoint TA needs for sites.
Data-tailored technical assistance.
The DISC app tracks virtual and in-person supportive supervision and mentorship visits to sites. EGPAF staff record the technical area of focus, site staff who received TA, and their recommendations for improvement. This data, combined with SIMS & site performance indicators allows EGPAF teams to think through the type, frequency, and target audience of TA needed at sites.
Informed human resources for health advocacy.
EGPAF staff track direct service delivery impact data. This tracking supports conversations with national health entities to allocate the correct HRH at the right place and at the right time.
Accountability in capacity building.
All recommendations provided at a site visit are collected in an action plan. The action plan contains the TA recommendations, responsible EGPAF and site staff member, deadlines, and the status of implementation. The action plan is emailed to site staff with regular follow-up provided allowing EGPAF staff to know if their TA recommendations have been implemented, assess if it has influenced site performance, and support decisions to either enhance action item follow-up or adjust TA to improve site performance.
Data visualization and TA communication.
Detailed DISC data is visualized using the Microsoft Power Bi platform. EGPAF teams use the information at the local and national level to review TA influence on site performance and streamline communication between field and headquarter staff on key issues affecting achievement of goals.
