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Category: NEWS

  • Article: Barriers to mental health care utilization among internally displaced persons in the republic of Georgia: a rapid appraisal study

    The new paper identifies the health system barriers leading to low rates of utilization of mental health services among internally displaced people (IDP) with mental disorders. The paper was published in BMC Health Services Research authored by Adrianna Murphy, Ivdity Chikovani, Maia Uchaneishvili, Nino Makhashvili and Bayard Roberts.

    Rapid appraisal methods were used to investigate barriers to accessing mental health care services among adult IDPs in Georgia. Inadequate coverage of mental disorders and poor identification and referral systems, underfunding, shortage of human resources, poor information systems, patient out-of-pocket payments, and stigmatization – these factors emerged as important barriers affecting access.

    Download the full article.

  • Why Georgians second-guess their doctors – Deregulation has left Georgian medical care something many Georgians would rather avoid

    Full Article is available on Eurasianet

    ” […] Last year, Giorgi Tsiklauri, 24, was diagnosed with leukemia at a hospital in Tbilisi and was about to undergo chemotherapy, but he decided to seek a second opinion in Turkey. As it turned out, he had an infection on the inner surface of his heart, Tsiklauri told local media, publicly accusing his Georgian doctor of incompetence.

    Of course, doctors can make mistakes in even the most-developed countries. A 2017 study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine found that medical error ranks as the third-leading cause of death in the United States.

    But the statistics suggest Georgia has a large number of poorly regulated doctors.

    Last year, the Georgian government suspended 93 doctors’ licenses, mostly for malpractice, according to Nino Khutsishvili of the State Agency for Regulating Medical Activity. By comparison, the state of California, which has 10 times the population and five times the doctors, revoked 44 medical licenses on similar grounds.

    Lapses in education and deregulation may, at least partly, explain the frequency of medical errors, suggests Giorgi Gotsadze, the president of the Curatio International Foundation, a healthcare think-tank based in Tbilisi.

    “Medicine is a constantly evolving field and lifelong learning is needed to stay abreast of [changes]. In Georgia, physicians are not required by the state to keep upgrading their professional skills,” Gotsadze explained.

    In a 2017 report for the World Health Organization, Curatio emphasized the risks of deregulation and the privatization of state medical facilities.

    “In 2006, the government of Georgia introduced an aggressive privatization policy and applied market-regulated principles to the health sector, characterized by liberal regulations and minimum supervision. In the framework of this policy, many regulations were abolished, and medical facilities and quality of services were no longer controlled by the state,” the report said. Today, “there are no regulations to appraise service providers’ clinical practice.”

    Compensation

    Even if patients ultimately escape a poorly trained doctor unharmed, many are averse to go through with the drudgery of pressing administrative and legal charges. Dentist Nino Kopadze was content to simply tell off the doctor who mistakenly diagnosed her with stomach cancer. “I did not have the stamina to follow through with filing a complaint and all that, though I should have,” she told Eurasianet.

    The man who did the original ultrasound test on Kira publicly admitted his mistake. “I am of course now convinced that I made a mistake and that there was nothing there. And I have no problem apologizing for it,” the diagnostic sonographer at Interclinic said on television. (Interclinic declined to be interviewed in a reasonable timeframe for this story.) Kira’s parents are now deciding whether to accept the apology or to press for compensation for the costs and stress they suffered.”

     

    Eurasianet is an independent news organization that covers news from and about the South Caucasus and Central Asia, providing on-the-ground reporting and critical perspectives on the most important developments in the region.

     

  • Ara Srinagesh from New York University Shares her Internship Experience

    [vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Ara Srinagesh visited CIF as an intern from New York University. Ara is a master degree student of Public Health in Health Promotion & Disease Prevention and Outcomes. During the Winter Internship program, Ara worked on literature review related to HIV Prevention and Risk Behavior issues among Key Populations in Georgia.

    In the short video interview, Ara shares her internship experience and speaks about the future career plans.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_wp_custommenu nav_menu=”72″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]

    Visit the page for more interviews with our previous interns. And to apply for CIF internship program, visit the announcement page.[/vc_column_text][ultimate_spacer height=”30″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

  • Webinar on The peer review process – what happens when you send your manuscript to a journal

    This webinar took place on April 23, 2018. However, if you missed the session or want to listen to it again, you can watch the recording.

    Have you ever wondered what the journal editor’s viewpoint is on your article, or what happens once you send your manuscript to a journal? This webinar will provide an overview of the peer review process with advice for authors on how to engage constructively with comments from editors and reviewers, and what to do when you disagree.

    As part of a series of webinars jointly organized by HSG and Biomed Central exploring various aspects of publishing and the peer review process, this webinar will particularly focus on:

    • What happens during the peer review process

    • Models of peer review, why you should care

    • What Editors and reviewers are looking for

    • How decisions are made

    • How to respond to reviewers’ and editors’ comments

    • Dealing with rejection

    Curatio International Foundation hosts Health Systems Global Secretariat. Health Systems Global (HSG) is the first international membership organization fully dedicated to promoting health systems research and related knowledge translation. HSG brings together researchers, policy-makers, funders, implementers, civil society and other stakeholders from all over the world. Around 1900 HSG members work together to create, share and apply knowledge necessary for strengthening health systems globally.

  • Webinar on Improving Quality of Care during Childbirth: Learnings and Next Steps from the BetterBirth Trial

    This webinar took place on April 24, 2018. However, if you missed the session or want to listen to it again, you can watch the recording.

    Join the webinar organized by HSG Thematic Working Group Quality in Universal Health and Healthcare. During this webinar, Katherine Semaru will discuss the lessons learned from the BetterBirth trial towards the increase of quality of maternal and newborn care, and the work still needed to reduce maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality.

    The Ariadne Labs’ BetterBirth Program has been focused on developing, implementing, and testing the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Safe Childbirth Checklist globally. In 2014, after a successful pilot of the Checklist in southern India, the BetterBirth study was initiated in Uttar Pradesh, India, at primary and community health centers. The study measured the effectiveness of the BetterBirth Program on the uptake of essential birth practices by birth attendants and on early neonatal mortality, maternal mortality, and maternal morbidity. With follow up data on over 300,000 mothers and infants, the BetterBirth trial is one of the largest maternal health trials ever conducted.

    About the speaker

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    Katherine Semrau, PhD, MPH, is director of the BetterBirth Program at Ariadne Labs. She is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Associate Epidemiologist at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the Division of Global Health Equity.She led a large randomized controlled trial of a coaching-based intervention to increase use and adherence to the WHO Safe Childbirth Checklist.

    Curatio International Foundation Hosts Health Systems Global Secretariat. Health Systems Global (HSG) is the first international membership organization fully dedicated to promoting health systems research and related knowledge translation. HSG brings together researchers, policy-makers, funders, implementers, civil society and other stakeholders from all over the world. Around 1900 HSG members work together to create, share and apply knowledge necessary for strengthening health systems globally.

  • Civil Society is Being United to Discuss Healthcare System Issues

    Curatio International Foundation, within the framework of the ongoing project: “Engaging civil society in decision-making and monitoring in Georgian healthcare sector” along with the Open Society Network supports strengthening and consolidating civil society representatives interested in health care for advocacy on health issues. To this end, we start a joint discussion on the problematic issues of the health system to identify systemic shortcomings, to collect evidence and to set an action plan for change.

    This initiative brings together more than 20 interested organizations, including civil society, media, and academy.

    The first meeting will be held on 29-30 March in Lopota, Kakheti. In the frames of the meeting, its participants will have a discussion about healthcare system challenges associated with the pharmaceutical market, such as such as availability of medicines, medication quality control and rising prices.

    The aim of the discussion is to bring together the knowledge about the pharmaceutical sector in Georgia, to collect evidence and official statistics, and to plan joint advocacy initiatives of civil society.

    The financial support of the project is the Open Society Network. Within the framework of the project, it is planned to hold a number of workshops in order to cover the topics of high interest for the public.

    Information on the process of the process will be available on the website of Curatio International Foundation. Also, keep track of Curatio Facebook page to gain access to the updated content.

  • Curatio International Foundation for a TB-Free World

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    March 24 is the time to join the global movement to end tuberculosis. Curatio International Foundation joins global society to mobilize resources to further progress in eliminating TB as a public health burden. In recent years, Curatio International Foundation together with its global partners has implemented several projects at both the national and international levels addressing TB financing, transition from donor funding and TB community strengthening. We believe our commitment will result in a better environment to broadening the prospects of a TB-free world.

     

    Results4TB: Designing and evaluating provider results-based financing for tuberculosis care in Georgia

    Curatio International Foundation  in partnership with Queen Margaret University (UK), the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (UK) and the Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine (Belgium) is implementing a study entitled ‘Designing and evaluating provider results-based financing for tuberculosis care in Georgia: understanding costs, mechanisms of effect and impact’. The 48-month research project will assist the government of Georgia in developing a provider incentive payment scheme for tuberculosis for better TB care. The study will generate evidence of its new financing scheme effects on the adherence and treatment success rates and costs.[/vc_column_text][ultimate_spacer height=”20″][vc_simple_slider ids=”6443″][ultimate_spacer height=”20″][vc_column_text]The project is funded through the Joint Health Systems Research Initiative, which is jointly funded by the Department of International Development, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust.

    The beneficiaries of this research are TB patients, nurses and physicians involved in TB care, health facility managers, policy-makers, community members and the scientific community in Georgia, in the region and globally. The research will narrow the knowledge gap that exists around RBF interventions, such as their application in public and private settings and their cost-effectiveness, the conditions of success and the wider (negative and positive) consequences of the scheme. The research will also produce methodological innovations regarding the use of realist evaluation alongside impact evaluation and cost-effectiveness analysis.[/vc_column_text][ultimate_spacer height=”20″][vc_simple_slider ids=”6444″][ultimate_spacer height=”20″][vc_column_text]National policy-makers will use the evidence produced through this research to reform the financing of outpatient TB care in a way that improves the efficiency, quality and sustainability of services. Additionally, findings will be beneficial for other LMICs, particularly for those with a similar vertical organization of TB services (most of the former socialist countries of Eastern and Central Europe and Central Asia) and for countries where private providers play an important role in the provision of TB services.

    Read the blog prepared alongside the project.

    Assessing the impact of donor co-financing and transition policies on TB Commodity Procurement

    The Curatio International Foundation recently began the implementation of the project entitled: Assessing impact of donor co-financing and transition policies on TB Commodity Procurement. The project is financially supported by the Stop TB partnership and UNOPS, initiated by Global Drug Facility (GDF).

    The assignment will last 10 months and aims to assess the positive and negative implications The Global Fund’s (TGF) Sustainability, Transition and Co-Financing Policy (STCP) that may have on TB commodity procurement practices on a country level within the EECA region.

    Based on the goal of the assignment the project has the following objectives:

    • Develop a methodological approach necessary for systematically documenting and assessing the challenges and opportunities related to the TB commodity procurement practices arising from TGF’s STCP
    • Using a methodological approach and standard tools, systematically assess and document experiences related to TB commodity procurement practices during and after the transition in the countries that have graduated from TGF support or are already implementing STCP and paying for parts of TB commodity purchase.

    After the successful completion of the project, a scientific article will be published in a peer reviewed international journal describing the key findings from all the assessed EECA region countries.

    The project findings will help countries become more awareness of existing gaps and will assist them in taking the appropriate actions for change.

     

    TB Community Systems Strengthening (TBCSS) Project in Georgia

    The Curatio International Foundation implemented the TB Community Systems Strengthening (TBCSS) project in Georgia which was funded by the Stop TB partnership. The project started in 2016 and lasted for one year.

    The overarching goal of the TBCSS project was to build-up integrated and comprehensive responses to TB that are patient-centered, and include a strong partnership with communities and civil society.[/vc_column_text][ultimate_spacer height=”20″][vc_simple_slider ids=”6445,6446″][ultimate_spacer height=”20″][vc_column_text]The project had three main objectives: 1: To assess the legal and social environment, the capacity of civil society, and the gaps and needs for engaging civil society in the TB community response; 2: to improve organizational strength for the sustainable development of civil society in the TB field; 3: Improve the links, coordination and networking of TB constituencies, civil society organizations, as well as state and other actors.

    CIF inventoried all civil society organizations (CSO) working on tuberculosis issues in Georgia, with the financial support of Stop TB Partnership through the CFCS round 7.  In the framework of this project, a TB CSO informational directory was developed which is available here.

    TB Coalition Georgia has already been registered as a legal entity and several capacity development activities have been held that aim to strengthen the coalition with the support of the Curatio International Foundation. As a significant outcome of the project, one recent forum of civil societies organized by Country Coordination Mechanism, TB Coalition Georgia has initiated several advocacy topics to support the fight against TB in Georgia[/vc_column_text][ultimate_spacer height=”20″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

  • Summer Internship Program is now open

    [vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The summer internship program is now open! International students from around the world are invited to apply and use the possibility to develop advanced research skills, meet leading experts in the field and become a co-author of a scientific paper. In this wave, we offer three research directions to work on:

    1. Challenges and Solutions in Pharmaceutical sector in Georgia
    2. HIV Prevention and Risk Behaviour among Key Populations (MSM)
    3. Measurement of the Quality of Care

    The full announcement is available here.

    If you are interested in any of the research topics and would like to find out more about working with our research team please submit your resume, motivation letter indicating the selected research topic and a recommendation letter from the university or the working place.

    Deadline for application is April 23, 2018. Notification about selection will be sent within 10 days after the deadline. Please follow our Twitter account with the hashtag #InternshipatCIF to be updated about the selection process.

    For any further queries, please contact Internship Program Coordinator Maia Uchaneishvili at internship@curatio.com

    Check our infographic to learn more about the program.[/vc_column_text][ultimate_spacer height=”30″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

  • Closing Project: Tuberculosis Community Systems Strengthening in Georgia

    The Curatio International Foundation has fulfilled a Tuberculosis Community Systems Strengthening (TBCSS) Project in Georgia, funded by the Stop TB partnership in the frame of Challenge Facility for Civil Society (CFCS) round 7 program. The goal for the project was to strengthen community response that is integrated and a part of a comprehensive response to TB in Georgia.

    The Curatio International Foundation studied CSO engagement in patient-centered quality TB community care in the country and developed directory of civil society organizations (CSOs) and TB communities that have been enrolled in providing TB education, prevention, support, treatment adherence and care services among various target groups in recent past.

    Project revealed major challenges for community engagement in the TB response in Georgia:

    Limited funding opportunities for CSOs: Donor-funds are of limited scale; and the Government of Georgia has never funded TB CSOs for delivering TB services.

    Limited capacity of CSOs: The mapping of CSOs has demonstrated that CSOs, and particularly less experienced TB-specific community-based groups,  lack capacity for organizational management, fundraising, program financial management, leadership, etc.

    Uneven geographic distribution of CSOs: There are only few CSOs that are engaged in TB services and mostly they are operational in Tbilisi, the capital city. Community based system for TB is not developed in regions and the number of CSOs is not evenly distributed geographically.

    Within the project we had number of significant achievements addressing the challenges:

    1. TB Georgia Coalition (TBGC) was registered as a non-profit, nongovernmental organization on October 30, 2017. That has generated new expectations among member organizations and increased their motivation to become more active in the field.
    2. Member organizations of TBGC have benefited from each training organized under the CFCS Rd7 grant. CSOs representatives underwent intensive training on organizational management and leadership; program management cycles; program planning and budgeting, communication and presentation skills.
    3. The Patients’ Union for the first time ever received funding under the Global Fund TB grant and was contracted as a sub-sub recipient organization in a consortium with the community-based organization (CBO) – New Vector. The Memorandum of Understanding between the National Center for Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases and local CBO – New Vector and the Patient Union, has been signed on November 9, 2017, with the aim to improve treatment adherence for TB patients.
    4. Visibility of TB CSOs has increased through CFCS mapping and assessment results dissemination at the Country Coordination Mechanism (CCM) meeting, and national consultation meetings.

    Since its establishment TBGC participated in several high level meetings and actively has been engaged in the discussions on critical issues regarding patient centered TB care in Georgia. Significant progresses has been made in this direction, however, involvement of civil society and TB communities in the national TB program is in its initial stage.

    TB CSO directory document is available here.

  • Primary Health Care Systems: Georgia case study

    Curatio International Foundation publishes Georgia case study of primary health care system (PRIMASYS). The PRIMASYS case study covers key aspects of primary health care system, including policy development and implementation, financing, integration of primary health care into comprehensive health systems, scope, quality and coverage of care, governance and organization, and monitoring and evaluation of system performance.

    The PRIMASYS case study applied a framework looking at how the primary health care system works and what factors (both contextual and related to policy changes) have influenced access to and performance of primary health care in Georgia since 1994. Documents review and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders were conducted in 2017 in order to understand barriers and facilitators of the system reforms in Georgia.

    Georgia PRIMASYS case study emphasizes that Georgia’s health care system has undergone radical reforms over the last two decades, significantly influenced by external drivers such as political dynamics, macroeconomic factors, international partners’ involvement and internal processes.

    The current PHC system in Georgia offers accessible and affordable services to the population, with differentiated benefits to those in greater need. However, the system still requires significant improvements to achieve its ultimate goal of delivering comprehensive, continuous and people-centered care.

    Georgia PRIMASYS case study was part of the series of 20 PRIMASYS case studies globally developed with the support of the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research in collaboration with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The case studies will serve as the basis for a multi-country analysis of primary health care systems, to understand the systems-level determinants of primary health care performance, and to draw cross-cutting lessons learned in the implementation of primary health care policies and systems reforms and interventions.

    Download the full report.