EXPRESSION OF INTEREST FOR PROVISION OF QUALITY ASSURANCE TO NON FRANCHISED FACILITIES IN ETHIOPIA

Triggerise is a global non-profit organisation that is headquartered in South Africa. Our main aim is to motivate young people to make positive choices using innovative technology, real-time data, and behavioural insights. Through our digital platform, Tiko, and our local ecosystem of partners, we connect Tiko members to existing local service providers to meet their health and wellness needs. As part of this ecosystem, Triggerise provides access to quality-assured sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services through a network of private and public health facilities and pharmacies. To ensure quality in the relevant services accessed by adolescents and youth through the Tiko platform, Triggerise is looking to work with a pool of Independent Quality Assurance (QA) Providers to provide quality assurance (QA) and quality improvement (QI) to the private and non-franchised health facilities within the ecosystem. The provision of these services will be done through what will be called the Tiko QA Marketplace to ensure that the private and non-franchised facilities are:

• At the expected level to provide quality services in the areas of adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health (AYSRH) focusing of Family Planning (Short-acting and Long-acting, by conducting clinical audits to identify QA gaps, training and competency needs;
• Continuously supported to correctly and accurately offer youth-friendly AYSRH services especially Family planning (FP) by addressing the identified QA gaps as part of QI improvement.

Expectations

Triggerise is registered in Ethiopia and has its main office in Addis Ababa but carries out its programmes in 10 Sub-city including Arada, Addis Ketema, Gullele, Kirkose, Yeka, lemi-Kura, Akaki Kality, Nifas Silk, Kolfe and Lideta.

Triggerise expects all facilities onboarded on the Tiko platform to offer AYSRH services especially FP and maintain high levels of QA. Prior to working with Triggerise, a service readiness and availability assessment (SARA) will be conducted by Triggerise in the facilities to ensure they meet the minimum requirements for service delivery. This forms part of due diligence done by Triggerise to ensure that private health providers onboarded into the Tiko Platform meet the required legal threshold and have a favourable infrastructure and goodwill for AYSRH service delivery.

Therefore, the contracted independent QA providers from the Tiko QA Marketplace will be expected to provide QA support to private and non-franchised facilities. Work will include the following activities:

• Clinical and competency audits, baseline needs assessments and development of quality improvements plans (QIP);
• Training needs and competency assessments;
• Periodical support supervision visits;
• Compliance with clinical regulations and licensing requirements.

See below for more details around the QA/QI expectations of each independent QA provider that will participate in the Tiko QA Marketplace. This will include:

• Conduct a clinical audit and baseline assessment per facility to inform QIP development
• Conduct Annually competency assessment to identify gaps/needs for each Tiko service provider and develop QIP.
• Provide training in order to address competency gaps and ensure upskilling based on the baseline assessment and clinical audit findings
• Conduct competency upskilling and reskilling to improve skills, knowledge and attitude of Tiko service providers based on the competency assessment findings and identified gaps
• Ensure that staff operating in each facility are qualified and certified to provide services and that noted cases of non-compliance are addressed in a timely manner to ensure that the facilities remain active on the Tiko platform
• Submit timely QA reports, which will include QIPs and evidence of support supervision visit activities, as well as compliance to Triggerise’s relevant policies
• Report and escalate all safeguarding incidences to Triggerise in line with the Safeguarding Escalation process
• Report all adverse events to Triggerise’s QA Specialist within 24 hours.

Triggerise will support successful applicants to undertake the above scope of work with a package of tools, checklists, codes of conduct and QA report templates to ensure that they successfully undertake the above activities.

Examples of Expected Deliverables

Through our Tiko QA Marketplace, Triggerise will contract for 2 types of QA providers; one which will focus on QA audits and development of the QIP (QA provider 1), one which will focus on the implementation and management of the QIP (QA provider 2). The expectations and deliverables of the two different QA providers are found below:

Example of deliverables for Independent QA Provider 1

Main Role: QA Auditor

Main Deliverable: Independent QA Audit Report

• Clinical audits: clinical facility audits conducted for each facility on the platform annually to identify QA/QI gaps
• Training needs and competency assessment: competency and training gaps identified on the different health offers for each facility
• QIPs: QIP developed using gaps identified from SARA, clinical audit (including identifying infrastructural, process, and documentation gaps), and training needs assessments
• Preceding QIP appraisals: achievements and rectification of gaps from the previous QIPs confirmed and noted
• Report: final summary report (independent QA audit report) from the assessments produced, shared and handed over to the Triggerise QA Specialist
• Report on learnings: learnings documented, presented, and discussed with Triggerise’s QA Specialist.

Example of deliverables for QA Provider 2

Main Role: Coach / Mentor / Trainer

Main Deliverable: Competent providers in non-franchised private facilities

• Updated QIP and QA implementation plan: a detailed work plan shared with the Triggerise QA Specialist to specify the activities, resources and timelines it will take to execute the QIPs
• QIP implementation: continuous progress reports on the gaps rectified and achievements against the key QIP milestones
• Clinical competency conducted: report on the number of Tiko providers who are fully competent for the relevant services they provide
• Training (on-job or classroom or mentorship or coaching) conducted: training reports provided to indicate the number of training sessions conducted and competency scoring of each facility to indicate improvement
• Infrastructure, process and documentation corrections: correcting the gaps identified on infrastructure, process and documentation
• Final assessment and reporting: performance review with the provider to discuss client rating reports and client exit reports and service uptake numbers
• Report on learnings: learnings documented, presented, and discussed with the Triggerise QA team.

Examples of Roles and Responsibilities for Independent QA Provider 1: Quality Assurance Auditor

• Quality Audits: Quality assessment to identify the service delivery gaps for the specific health areas
• QIP Development: Development SMART action plan for the identified gaps per facility
• Report preparation: prepare narrative and quantitative reports for each facility

Examples of Roles and Responsibilities for Independent QA Provider 2: Coach / Mentor / Trainer

• QIP Implementation: A detailed action plan specifying key activities, resources and timelines to execute on the QIP (initially developed by QA Provider 1 and updated by QA Provider 2)
• Development of action plans for the identified gaps
• Mentorship and training* of the service provider on the identified gaps
• Review meetings with Triggerise monthly/bi-monthly to discuss QA progress per facility, client rating reports and client exit reports and service uptake numbers

Means of Verification Examples

Examples of Roles and Responsibilities for Independent QA Provider 1: Quality Assurance Auditor

• Facility-specific reports submitted by QA Provider Review of Supervision records Verification visits

Examples of Roles and Responsibilities for Independent QA Provider 2: Coach / Mentor / Trainer

• Facility-specific reports submitted by QA Provider Review of Supervision records Client exit reports and client rating reports Mystery client reports

Table 1: Examples of expected deliverables for the Tiko QA Marketplace

QA Provider 2 to conduct, coordinate and facilitate training in collaboration with training centres and the Ministry of Health that offers comprehensive training for health facilities.

Period of the Engagement

On a needs basis, from February 2024. The selected service providers will form part of the pre-qualified pool of QA Providers for the Tiko QA Marketplace.

Period of Validity of Bids

Bids shall remain valid for 10 working days after the date of bid opening prescribed by Triggerise. In exceptional circumstances, Triggerise may request the Bidders to extend the period of validity. The request and the responses thereto shall be made in writing by email. A bidder agreeing to the request will not be required nor permitted to modify the bid.

Documents Comprising the Bid

• An expression of interest detailing ability to undertake the outlined deliverables including examples of past relevant experience.
• Financial proposal outlining the detailed costing for the above deliverables.
• Valid company registration certificate or operating licence.
• Profile of the organisation or individual (CV).
• Three (3) references from current or past clients.

Eligibility and Evaluation Criteria

Eligible providers should meet the following criteria and will be assessed against the following:

Criteria

Clinical expertise and experience in AYSRH focusing on FP services

• Experience in conducting clinical quality audits and developing quality improvement plans.
• Assessor/Mentor/Clinical Coach/Trainer experience in the provision of QA/QI services to private sector facilities (clinics and pharmacies).
• At least 1 year experience in implementing health related projects (compulsory clinical experience and experience in implementing adolescent and youth service delivery projects is an added advantage). Applicants to specify areas of expertise in AYSRH (e.g. family planning )
• Organisation has previously worked for the QA private sector including pharmacies.

Weight: 40

Strength of the technical proposal:

• Overall strength of propose))d expression of interest, including the ability to address specific tasks against the outlined deliverables.
• Clear methodology on how to achieve deliverables.
• Proposal demonstrates technical understanding of QA activities and has a QA system in place including tools, job-aids, and other relevant infrastructure/resources.
• Demonstrates staffing capacity to carry out QA by having qualified and experienced field team and key staff for QA/QI.
• Organisation is registered (registration certificate). QA individuals, independent providers and consultancy firms are required to produce professional licences and renewed relevant trade/practice licences and applicable Tax ID Numbers.
• Local presence for the last 1 year in the proposed areas of operation (Region).
• Organisation has received county or national government, or any other organisation recommendation and/or references from current or past clients.

Weight: 40

Strength of the financial proposal:

• Detailed cost indication to successfully implement the outlined deliverables.
• Value for money. Cost range is relevant to QA budgets.

Weight: 20

Total Weight: 100