Browsing by Author "Owuondo, Pacific Akinyi"

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Human resource capacity for information management in selected public healthcare facilities in Meru County, Kenya
(Pan African Medical Research, 2015-04) Kiilu, Elizabeth Mueke; Okero, Dominic Charles; Muiruri, Lillian; Owuondo, Pacific Akinyi
Introduction: Reliable health information is essential for decision making in the healthcare system. Information management in Kenya was considered the weakest area under the Health Information System pillar mainly due to inadequate health workers capacity. The study therefore aimed at assessing health workers skills and current training needs for information management in the selected healthcare facilities. Methods: Cross-section research design was adopted and both purposive sampling technique and censuses were used to establish the study participants. Analysis was done using SPSS version 20 and results were presented in tables, charts and graphs. Results: It was established that capacity building was usually undertaken through on-job trainings i.e. 85.1% (103) health workers had on-job training on filling of data collection tools and only 10% (13) had received formal classroom training on the same. Further, only 9.1% (11) health workers had received information management training while 90.9% (110) had not received such training. Health workers demonstrated below average skills on information management i.e. only 17.4% (21) could check for data accuracy, only 16.5% (20) could compute trends from bar charts and only 16.5% (20) could transform the data they collected into meaningful information for use. Conclusion: The researcher recommended that healthcare facilities management teams develop a competency based framework for defining the desired skill mix for information management and have a yearly Training Needs Assessment for assessing training needs for information management among the health workers.
Implementation of adolescent friendly health services in county referral hospitals.
(KeMU, 2015-06) Owuondo, Pacific Akinyi
Health service delivery is a key pillar of the health system management .The World Health Organization recently emphasized the need to develop adolescent -friendly health services to improve the care provided to young people throughout the world. However, there is limited peer reviewed literature on this subject therefore necessitating assessment of whether the existing health facilities are prepared to implement the adolescent friendly health services. Adolescent friendly health services remains a relatively new and sensitive area mainly due to restrictive norms and policies guiding the services. After International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, countries started implementing adolescent friendly health services. The Government of Kenya together with partners in an attempt to address the health challenges came up with the Adolescent package of care (APOC) in 2013 whose guidelines were finalized in November 2014 and released for use by service providers. Despite this package of care, there is still ineffective staff capacity in relation to skills and knowledge gap of health professionals, training needs, health resources as well as health system factors that can affect implementation of AFHS. The study explored ways of mitigating or addressing the barriers to implementation of these services. The study used both quantitative and qualitative approaches to collect data. The study utilized survey research adapting descriptive cross sectional design and semi-structured questionnaire to interview 348 health care providers and 472 adolescents in Mam Lucy Kibaki Hospital from 3rd May 2014 to 16 June 2014 .The respondents were mainly nurses, clinical officers and Medical doctors who were working at the health service delivery area at the time of study and were interviewed using an interview guide. The managers at the hospital were interviewed using an in-depth interview guide while the adolescents were interviewed through interview schedule. A total of four (4) focus group discussion was held with adolescents. Quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS Version 18.0. Descriptive statistics and chi-square tests were performed to determine significant associations. The study established that sex, age, level of education and adolescent awareness about existence of friendly health services offered were significantly associated with utilization at p<0.05. Long queues, unfavorable working hours and lack of money negatively affected consumption of AFHS. The study concluded that the utilization of health services among the adolescents was low largely due to unfriendliness of the health care providers at health facilities and lack of awareness of AFHS services. In view of the findings, this study recommends need for the Government through the Ministry of Health and partners in health service provision to increase the number of AFHS and ensure that the recommendations of adolescent package of care is implemented fully with good evaluation strategies in place. Laborious awareness drives to sensitize the adolescents about availability of adolescent friendly services through rigorous health education and increased involvement of both parents/guardians and teachers to scale up implementation are also recommended. Keywords: Preparedness, Staff Capacity, Health resources and Adolescent friendly Health Services.
Preparedness of County Referral Health Facilities in Implementing Adolescent Friendly Health Services: A Case of Mama Lucy Kibaki County Refferal Hospital, Kenya
(Global Journal of Health Science;, 2015) Owuondo, Pacific Akinyi; Mwaura-Tenembergen, Wanja; Adoyo, Maureen; Kiilu, Elizabeth M.
Background: Health service delivery is a key pillar of health system management. However, there is limited peer reviewed literature on health services to adolescents necessitating assessment of whether the existing health facilities were prepared to implement the adolescent friendly health services. Staff capacity, health resources and health system factors were assessed in regards to health service delivery to adolescent cohort study. Methods: Cross-sectional research design was adopted, census, stratified random sampling and simple random sampling were used to establish study participants. Data was collected using structured questionnaires and focused group discussions for adolescents. Analysis was done using Statistical package for the social science Version 17.0 programme for data analysis and results were presented in tables and graphs. Results: The study established that there is limited adolescent friendly health services implementation in the facility. Even though 107 (73.3%) of the healthcare providers referred to the adolescent health services offered at the facility as friendly. Health workers capacity was limited in regards to adolescent friendly health service delivery. On the other hand 212 (100%) adolescents recommended specific health resources to be incorporated within the health system to improve the services rendered to them. Conclusion: The link between health care resources and adolescent health is not well understood by health workers and managers leading to inadequacy of services specific to adolescents. Laborious awareness drives to sensitize county referral health facilities to make a significant investment in the health system that supports adolescent friendly health service implementation. Similar studies need to be done in other county referral health facilities to generate more supportive evidence.