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Can Measurement Increase Quality? Or What if we Implemented RBF without the F?

This project examines the impact of repeated measurement of protocol adherence on health worker performance in Tanzania. Results show that measurement alone can increase effort and quality without financial incentives, highlighting the importance of expectations and accountability in health systems.

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Can Measurement Increase Quality? Or What if we Implemented RBF without the F?

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  1. Can Measurement Increase Quality?OrWhat if we Implemented RBF without the F? Kenneth L. Leonard University of Maryland, College Park

  2. A project with repeated measurement of protocol adherence (based on patient exit interviews) • Sample of 96 health workers providing outpatient care in urban and peri-Urban Arusha, Tanzania. • Assessed for protocol adherence for fever, cough and diarrhea with a general assessment of other conditions. • Interviews with patients after they left the consultation. • Enumerators were unannounced, although it appears that, after some time at the facility, health workers figured out there was someone around. (more on this later). • Brock, M, Lange, A and Leonard K.L. “Giving and Promising Gifts: Experimental Evidence on Reciprocity from the Field”, mimeo 2015 • Brock, M, Lange, A and Leonard K.L., “Generosity and Prosocial behavior in Health Care Provision: Evidence from the Laboratory and Field”, Journal of Human Resources, forthcoming. • Leonard, K.L. and Masatu. M.C. “Changing Provider Performance Incentives without Payments: The Long Term Impacts of a Program to Encourage Quality in Outpatient Care”, mimeo 2015.

  3. Baseline Adherence

  4. Now a peer sits in the room to watch

  5. Then the peer leaves

  6. A well known doctor visits each health worker with an “encouragement” script, priming key items of protocol (no data collected)

  7. Quality about 2 to 4 weeks later

  8. Randomly Assigned Feedback Visit, discussing results, implied end of study (no data collected)

  9. Quality collected again, about 2 weeks later

  10. Quality collected about two years later

  11. What happened? • Immediate scrutiny increases effort, but has no lasting impact • Encouragement, by itself has limited impact, but only on those items specifically mentioned • The feedback visit looks like it improves effort, but half the health workers received no feedback and their improvement is exactly the same, so feedback isn’t helping. • The gains are long-lasting.

  12. What does it mean? • The project causes health workers to increase their effort and quality without any increase in resources or training • And without any financial incentives: • This is RBF without F. • This is not a program to be implemented at scale but a indicator that the necessary elements of expectations and accountability are missing in many health systems. • However, these necessary elements are not sufficient by themselves: we need measurement to complete the picture.

  13. Measurement doesn’t improve quality, but if health workers know that:

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