Policy and Advocacy. As noted, the Ombudsman will advocate for the rights and proper treatment of KanCare consumers through direct involvement and mediation with consumers, State policy divisions, and KanCare plans. Additionally, the Ombudsman will represent the Secretary of KDADS on consumer councils and focus groups convened by the KanCare plans, and provide the Secretary with counsel on suggested policy changes or additions to enhance consumer protections and engagement under KanCare. The Ombudsman will present the Legislature an annual report detailing the activities of the office, summarizing major issues of concern, and present suggested policy changes or additions to enhance consumer protections and engagement under KanCare. Coordination with Quality Oversight:
Policy and Advocacy. As noted, the Ombudsman will advocate for the rights and proper treatment of KanCare consumers through direct involvement and mediation with consumers, State policy divisions, and KanCare plans. Additionally, the Ombudsman will represent the Secretary of KDADS on consumer councils and focus groups convened by the KanCare plans, and provide the Secretary with counsel on suggested policy changes or additions to enhance consumer protections and engagement under KanCare. The Ombudsman will present the Legislature an annual report detailing the activities of the office, summarizing major issues of concern, and present suggested policy changes or additions to enhance consumer protections and engagement under KanCare. Coordination with Quality Oversight: KanCare program quality and outcome performance will be monitored through an Interagency Monitoring Team, which includes program managers, contract managers, fiscal staff and other relevant staff/resources from both KDHE and KDADS. Key activities of the KanCare Ombudsman will be included as a critical component of monitoring the performance of MCOs and providers within the KanCare program, as part of the statewide quality improvement strategy and the operating protocols of the Interagency Monitoring Team.
Policy and Advocacy. “They started working on what they could see was coming…” were the words of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Infant Health Assessor, Xxxxxx Xxxxxx. From his perspective, at the national level, there is an increasing recognition of the fact that health priorities had seemed to “abandon” neonates, whereas now there is an increased dialogue on this topic and national priorities and strategies to address this very vulnerable population. As of the years 1999/2000, in response to the comment from various NGOs that “neonatal health in Peru was still weak”, a team composed of PRISMA, Caritas, ADRA and CARE have been meeting with UNICEF and PAHO to improve neonatal and maternal health policies in Peru. In 2000, they started introducing the focus of neonatal health in the IMCI approach, and experienced some resistance in 2002 and 2003 to this. However, as people started using the IMCI, with its neonatal focus, there seemed to be a paradigm shift with regards to how to manage children’s health, and the response started becoming more positive because “it made sense” to the health providers working with children. Now the MOH is about to launch this national strategy for maternal/neonatal health, addressing the gaps in the current programs. Xx. Xxxxxx discussed the various activities associated with the three main components of this strategy associated with: 1) shifting clinical practice of health providers from focusing on a medical consult to integrated care for the child, 2) changing the way the health care delivery system is set up (which focuses on specific “health problems” vs. the integrated perspective), and 3) addressing the fact that integrated care does not end in a health facility: community level work must be complementary. He felt that Xx. Xxxxxx, Project Director of the Healthy Babies project, had seen what was coming and has been instrumental in the changing national policies for almost a decade. With specific regards to the Healthy Babies project, due to their commitment to validate the IMCI (with neonatal focus) manual in the Ucayali region, they are making a great contribution to the MOH by starting to locally and culturally adapt the manual to the needs of rainforest populations in Peru. Moreover, the Healthy Babies project interventions are being implemented in the rainforest, and the results will guide the MOH in ways to implement similar interventions in other regions of the country, making the process more cost-effective. Moreover, Hea...
Policy and Advocacy. GIMS has done an admirable job linking with policy-level officials and participating in national and state fora to discuss community-based MCNH programming and disseminate the lessons learned from CLICS. The prestige of MGIMS gives it credibility and respect, so communities tend to listen more carefully to what is said, giving more weight to research findings. The director of the DCM sits on a number of state, national, and even international committees. The secretariat of the state chapter of the Voluntary Health Associate of India (VHAI) is located at MGIMS. Few organizations are as well placed to influence and advocate for a change in the way health programs and the health system operates. Nonetheless, since the institute has no control or direct influence on how the public health system functions, it is limited in what it is able to do. As the NCE has been approved, CLICS and the MGIMS are in a better position to influence community MCNH policy and service delivery at the district, state, and national levels. The CRC will serve as a mechanism to provide those interested and committed to improving health status at the grassroots level with the vast knowledge and experience that CLICS and MGIMS has accumulated during the five-year project. In addition, MGIMS is an active member of the USAID-funded efforts, VISTAAR, and MCH Star. Through these mechanisms, the institute will be able to influence and disseminate what it has learned from CLICS. At the same time, it is expected that CLICS approaches and strategy can be replicated in the rural training site of several other medical schools, thereby strengthening them and exposing more faculties and students to the CLICS approach.
