Abt Associates has been awarded the USAID-funded Quality Health Care Project (QHCP) in Central Asia. This contract will allow the company to continue and expand the transformational work done under the "Zdrav" series of projects, which made progress in health system strengthening and service delivery improvement.
Nancy Pielemeier, Vice President for International Health, noted that "Abt Associates is extremely pleased to be able to build upon its 15-year commitment to improving the health of the population in Central Asia."
From 1994 to 2009, Abt Associates worked to improve health in the Central Asian republics through a successful, results-oriented reform program under three USAID-funded projects: ZdravReform, ZdravPlus, and ZdravPlus II. Abt Associates' "diagonal approach" — implementing health system strengthening and vertical disease interventions in an integrated and coordinated manner — has helped the Central Asian Republics to achieve concrete results in improving hypertension management and delivery outcomes for mothers and newborns.
The overall goal of QHCP is to improve the health status of Central Asians by building the capacity of country-level health systems to better meet the health needs of vulnerable groups. To do so it will introduce or institutionalize quality improvement methodologies at all levels of health services management and empower the community to respond to health needs.
QHCP, which covers Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, will focus on improving TB control and HIV/AIDS prevention, diagnosis, and treatment services, building on USAID's previous accomplishments in these priority areas.
"We are very excited about the opportunity to link broader health system strengthening with maternal and child health, TB, and HIV service delivery improvement in Central Asia," said Abt Associates' Regional Project Director Sheila O'Dougherty.
Abt Associates has assembled a team of partners with unparalleled experience and cutting-edge expertise to implement QHCP. These partners include Project HOPE, AIDS Projects Management Group, Family Health International, Scientific Technology and Language Institute, Boston Medical Center, and Socium Consult.