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Elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in South Africa: Rapid scale-up using quality improvement
Abstract
Objectives. We describe the process undertaken by the National Department of Health (NDoH), in collaboration with partners, to develop, implement and monitor a data-driven intervention to improve facility, district, provincial and national PMTCT-related performance.
Methods. Between 2011 and 2013, the NDoH developed and implemented an intervention using data-driven participatory processes to understand facility-level bottlenecks to optimise PMTCT implementation and to scale up priority PMTCT actions nationally.
Results. There was remarkable improvement across all key indicators in the PMTCT cascade over the 3 years 2011 - 2013. Simple monitoring tools such as a visual dashboard and data for action reports were successfully used to improve the performance of the PMTCT programme across SA. MTCT has shown a significant downward trend.
Conclusions. It is feasible to implement district-level, data-driven quality improvement processes at a national scale to improve the performance of the PMTCT programme at the local level.