BMC Health Services Research
http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmchealthservres/content
(Accessed 13 June 2015)

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Research article
Management practices to support donor transition: lessons from Avahan, the India AIDS Initiative
Sara Bennett1*, Daniela Rodriguez1, Sachiko Ozawa1, Kriti Singh2, Meghan Bohren1, Vibha Chhabra2 and Suneeta Singh2
Author Affiliations
BMC Health Services Research 2015, 15:232 doi:10.1186/s12913-015-0894-0
Published: 13 June 2015
Abstract
Background
During 2009-2012, Avahan, a large donor funded HIV/AIDS prevention program in India was transferred from donor support and operation to government. This transition of approximately 200 targeted interventions (TIs), occurred in three tranches in 2009, 2011 and 2012. This paper reports on the management practices pursued in support of a smooth transition of the program, and addresses the extent to which standard change management practices were employed, and were useful in supporting transition.
Results
We conducted structured surveys of a sample of 80 TIs from the 2011 and 2012 rounds of transition. One survey was administered directly before transition and the second survey 12 month after transition. These surveys assessed readiness for transition and practices post-transition. We also conducted 15 case studies of transitioning TIs from all three rounds, and re-visited 4 of these 1-3 years later.
Results
Considerable evolution in the nature of relationships between key actors was observed between transition rounds, moving from considerable mistrust and lack of collaboration in 2009 toward a shared vision of transition and mutually respectful relationships between Avahan and government in later transition rounds. Management practices also evolved with the gradual development of clear implementation plans, establishment of the post of “transition manager” at state and national levels, identified budgets to support transition, and a common minimum programme for transition. Staff engagement was important, and was carried out relatively effectively in later rounds. While the change management literature suggests short-term wins are important, this did not appear to be the case for Avahan, instead a difficult first round of transition seemed to signal the seriousness of intentions regarding transition.
Conclusions
In the Avahan case a number of management practices supported a smooth transition these included: an extended and sequenced time frame for transition; co-ownership and planning of transition by both donor and government; detailed transition planning and close attention to program alignment, capacity development and communication; engagement of staff in the transition process; engagement of multiple stakeholders post transition to promote program accountability and provide financial support; signaling by actors in charge of transition that they were committed to specified time frames.

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Research article
A concise, health service coverage index for monitoring progress towards universal health coverage
Anthony Leegwater1, Wendy Wong2 and Carlos Avila1*
BMC Health Services Research 2015, 15:230 doi:10.1186/s12913-015-0859-3
Published: 12 June 2015
Abstract (provisional)
Background There is a growing international commitment to universal health coverage (UHC), but limited means to determine progress towards that goal. We developed a practical index for capturing health service coverage – a critical dimension of UHC — that was more inclusive than previous methods. Methods Our data included publicly-available, indicators reflecting health service delivery, infrastructure, human resources, and health expenditures for 103 countries. We selected a set of internally-consistent indicators and performed principal component analysis. Multiple imputation was used to address missing values. We extracted and rotated four components related to health service coverage and developed a composite index for each country for 2009. Results Explaining cumulatively almost 80% of the total variance, the four extracted components were characterized as: 1) provision of services, 2) infrastructure and human resources, 3) immunization (provision of services), and 4) financial resources. The health service coverage index developed from these components demonstrated strong correlation with health outcome measures such as infant mortality and life expectancy, supporting its validity. Index values also appeared generally consistent with published reports and the regional distribution of health coverage. Conclusions Our approach moved beyond common indicators of service coverage focused on infectious diseases and maternal and child health, to include information on necessary health inputs. The resulting, balanced, composite index of health service coverage demonstrated promise as a metric, likely to discriminate coverage levels between countries and regions. An important number of service provision indicators were correlated, therefore a reduced set of services performed well as a proxy for the full set of available indicators. This parsimonious index is a start toward simplifying the task of policy-makers monitoring progress on a key domain of universal health coverage.