ICAP has received funding from PEPFAR through HRSA for a five-year Quality Improvement Capacity and Impact Project (QICIP) to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, safety, accessibility, and equity of HIV services in low and middle income countries.

“The global AIDS response has ambitious goals,” said Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, director at ICAP. “In order to achieve them, we need to continuously improve the quality of HIV programs, as well as providing HIV services to more people.”

Through this project, ICAP will assist ministries of health and local partners in PEPFAR-supported countries to obtain efficient technical assistance for quality assurance and quality improvement, enabling them to improve program quality and to build local capacity to monitor program performance, identify quality challenges, explore root causes, develop targeted interventions, and conduct rapid, iterative tests of change.

“This is an important opportunity to support quality improvement in a wide range of countries and contexts,” said Dr. Miriam Rabkin, director of health system strategies at ICAP and principal investigator of QICIP. “We look forward to partnering with ministries of health to enhance the performance of HIV programs, and to improve the quality of care for patients, families, and communities around the world.”

The first QICIP project will be in Cameroon, where ICAP will support a quality collaborative involving 16 health facilities, working together to improve turn-around time for the tests used to diagnose HIV in infants.