Healthcare providers' perception of the referral system in maternal care facilities in Aceh, Indonesia: a cross-sectional study.

OBJECTIVES: Our study investigates the barriers perceived by staff in the referral systems in maternal healthcare facilities across Aceh province in Indonesia. DESIGN: With a cross-sectional approach, two sets of surveys were administered during September to October 2016 in 32 sampling units of our study. We also collected referral data in the form of the frequency of ingoing and outgoing referral cases per facility. SETTING: In three districts, Aceh Besar, Banda Aceh and Bireuen, a total of 32 facilities including hospitals, community health centres, and private midwife clinics that met the criteria of providing at least basic emergency obstetric and neonatal care (BEonC) were covered. PARTICIPANTS: Across the 32 healthcare centres, 149 members of staff (mainly midwives) agreed to participate in our surveys. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: The first survey consisted of 65 items focusing on organisational measures as well as case numbers for example, patient counts, mortality rate and complications. The second survey with 68 items asked healthcare providers about a range of factors including attitudes towards the referral process in their facility and potential barriers to a well-functioning system in their district. RESULTS: Overall, mothers'/families' consent as well as the complex administration process were found to be the main barriers (36% and 12%, respectively). Healthcare providers noted that information about other facilities has the biggest room for improvement (37%) rather than transport, timely referral of mothers and babies, or the availability of referral facilities. CONCLUSIONS: The largest barrier perceived by healthcare providers in our study was noted to be family consent and administrative burden. Moreover, lack of information about the referral system itself and other facilities seemed to be affecting healthcare providers and mothers/families alike and improvements perhaps through a shared information system is needed.

Mothers' experiences of quality of care and potential benefits of implementing the WHO safe childbirth checklist: a case study of Aceh Indonesia.

BACKGROUND: In an effort to mitigate missed opportunities to provide high-quality care, the World Health Organization (WHO) has developed the Safe Childbirth Checklist (SCC) to support health providers perform essential tasks. Our qualitative study is a baseline assessment of quality of care (QoC) perceived by mothers who gave birth at health facilities aiming to highlight areas where implementing the SCC can potentially improve the QoC as well as areas that are not part of the SCC yet require improvement. METHODS: Assessing the overall experience of care, our qualitative study focuses on 8 out of 29 items in the checklist that are related to the personal interactions between healthcare provider and mothers. Using a set of semi-structured questions, we interviewed 26 new mothers who gave institutional births in Aceh province in Indonesia. RESULTS: Our findings revealed some gaps where implementing the SCC can potentially improve safety and QoC. They include communicating danger signs at critical points during birth and after discharge, encouraging breastfeeding, and providing mothers with information on family planning. Moreover, taking a qualitative approach allowed us to identify additional aspects such as need for clarity at the point of admission, maintaining dignity, and protecting mothers' rights in the decision-making process to be also essential for better QoC. CONCLUSIONS: Our study highlights the need to actively listen to and engage with the experiences of women in the adaptation and implementation of the checklist. While our findings indicate that implementing the SCC has the potential to improve the quality of maternal care and overall birth experience, a more holistic understanding of the lived experiences of women and the dynamics of their interactions with health facilities, care providers, and their birth companions can complement the implementation of the checklist.

Ecohealth research in Southeast Asia: past, present and the way forward.

Ecohealth is a comprehensive approach to understanding health at its human, animal and environmental interface in a socio-ecological systems context. This approach was introduced widely in Southeast Asia (SEA) by the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in the late 2000s. Aimed at addressing the problem of emerging infectious diseases (EIDs), numerous such projects and activities have been generated throughout the region. Ecohealth is increasingly converging with the One Health approach, as both movements emphasise a holistic understanding to health. We conducted a scoping review by considering all of the Ecohealth programmes, initiatives and projects that have been implemented in SEA since the introduction of the approach, and also gathered information from peer-reviewed literature. The objective of this paper is to review Ecohealth activities within SEA over the last 10 years to address the lessons learned, challenges faced and the way forward for Ecohealth in the region. Activities range from those focusing purely on capacity, projects focusing on research and projects covering both. Achievements to date include, for example, research contributing to the field of infectious diseases in relation to social ecological factors and associated urbanisation and agricultural intensification. Challenges remain at the project design and implementation level, in the available capacity and coordination to develop Ecohealth research teams in the countries, gauging teams' assimilation of Ecohealth's underlying tenets and their translation into sustainable disease prevention and control, as well as in the ability to scale up Ecohealth projects. We suggest that the way forward for Ecohealth should be from a regional perspective in terms of research, training and policy translation using Ecohealth in combination with the One Health approach.