April 25, 2011

Building Relationships for Stronger Health Care in Liberia and Ghana


After working with representatives of Liberia and Ghana for three years, Gabe Forrey, GHLI Conference Project Manager, finally made his first trip to these countries visiting the delegates who will be attending the GHLI Conference in June. “After meeting in person to understand problems and discussing next steps, I heard a change in their voice, and saw them take ownership over the process to create their own strategic plan of the process to create a feasible plan to reduce maternal mortality during my visit,” explains Gabe.

Gabe’s visit focused on building personal and professional relationships with delegates -- beyond the confines of email -- to confirm respective delegations and confirm logistics for GHLI fellows in the summer.

Gabe shared one of his most memorable experiences talking to Dr. Camara, who is an advisor to student fellows. Although visibly busy, when he sat down to discuss the conference with Gabe, they talked for almost three hours. Gabe explained, “He’s now invested, we can grow and continue to see success and it’s an exciting feeling.”

Gabe described how inspiring it was when all six delegates rearranged their schedules for a group meeting, to meet, illustrating their commitment to taking the conference seriously. “Sitting face-to-face with the delegates helped me bring a new level of energy and excitement to them about the conference,” says Gabe. “I was able to answer questions, clarify details and address any concerns for them immediately.”

Gabe shared his hopes for the future of Liberia’s health outcomes by breaking away from content with the status quo. “If they can elevate quality of care while also improving trust in the community,” he explains. “They could start out small and build.”

Liberia’s 2011 country delegations are as follows: Gregory Walker, Margibi County health services administrator; Vivian Cherue, deputy minister of health; Aribella Greaves, former assistant minister of planning, r&d, Ministry of Health & former technical officer, World Health Organization; Ansumana Camara, Montserrado County health officer; Satta Mckay, Montserrado County health services administrator and Hawa Kromah, Margibi County health officer.

Amanda Sorrentino, GHLI Intern

April 18, 2011

Building on Success in South Africa


Erika Linnander’s face lights up as she talks about her recent GHLI trip to Ethiopia.  “It was fantastic,” she says.  “There’s such diverse leadership within the programs.”

During her two weeks immersed in Ethiopian health clinics and hospitals, she worked on developing GHLI’s Ethiopian Hospital Management Initiative (EHMI) and Ethiopian Millennium Rural Initiative (EMRI) programs.

Erika spent her first week working with the first cohort of students in the Master’s of Hospital Administration program at Addis Ababa University (AAU), where she was teaching financial management. This program is similar to the successful three year program established by Yale at Jimma University, which now fully functions on its own.

 “It was a mark of success to see Jimma University’s program sustained without GHLI,” shared Erika, after visiting this program during her second week. Erika expressed her hope for the same success at Addis Ababa University.

During the second week of her visit, Erika visited two EMRI health centers.  Yale, working together with the Clinton Health Access Initiative seeks to strengthen health outcomes in rural areas by using quantitative and qualitative data to evaluate and improve program design. Erika said she feels personally invested in the quality of this data and said she was also excited for the potential to use the data in  future collaboration in Ethiopia, such as an emerging initiative that will focus on maternal and child health.

As for her future ideas for these programs, Erika says she hopes the first cohort at AAU will join with other hospital CEOs in Ethiopia in a quality alliance, a network that will foster the sharing and blending of local solutions and global best practices to improving hospital quality.  She also emphasized how the creation of clinical blueprints, which is in the works between GHLI and CHAI, has the potential to serve as a bridge between ministry standards and guidelines and actual improvements in provider practices. 

Amanda Sorrentino, GHLI Intern

April 11, 2011

Why We Do What We Do: Jeannie Mantopoulos

Jeannie Mantopoulous was an undergraduate sitting in an economics class when she first became interested by the success of public health programs. She went on to intern with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in Intergovernmental Affairs. Jeannie expressed to me how important she felt these issues were, and how they made her want to get involved with public health. “It’s powerful to know that public health programs have the potential to have a significant impact on so many lives,” explained Jeannie.

Jeannie’s involvement with GHLI started after graduating from the Yale School of Public Health in 2008. In collaboration with Elizabeth Bradley, faculty director of GHLI, Jeannie was a project manager for the Ethiopia Hospital Management Initiative. Now, after three years, Jeannie has become the assistant director of GHLI.

Jeannie has thrived from collaborating with country partners and being able to share GHLI’s work with the Yale community. She shared how increased student engagement at GHLI makes her very proud of the opportunity to work on campus. She also described her accomplishments with GHLI as a collective effort to implement important programs in management and leadership. “We work as a team and I love it because it gives me the opportunity to learn so much from everyone and from the GHLI projects.” explained Jeannie.

Jeannie and her colleague, Gabe Forrey, have recently traveled to Ghana, Liberia, Rwanda, and South Africa working with country delegations that will attend GHLI’s third annual conference in June. “The conference gives senior health practitioners from different countries the time, space, and support to focus in on a particular health system issue with their respective team, while also learning from other country experiences; it’s really a unique opportunity.”

Amanda Sorrentino, GHLI Intern

April 4, 2011

GHLI Prepares for Upcoming Annual Conference: South Africa and Rwanda

Jeannie Mantopoulos, assistant director at GHLI, recently returned from a visit to South Africa and Rwanda where she worked in each country for a week in anticipation of GHLI’s upcoming third annual conference to take place June 6-10, 2011. South Africa and Rwanda will participate in this year’s conference, along with Ethiopia, Ghana and Liberia. 

Jeannie explained GHLI invites countries to the conference by identifying significant health systems accomplishments despite limited resources. Jeannie explained how the conference gives countries the opportunity to focus on issues they feel are a priority with expertise from Yale and abroad.

Jeannie had previously traveled to Rwanda to work with its Ministry of Health on a maternal and child health project. However, the Rwandan delegation has identified human resource management as its focus for the conference. She described the delegation this year as, “Prepared and excited for the opportunity to get together in June.”

South Africa’s delegation from the National Department of Health will focus on quality measurement to track quality and safety related problems in maternal and child health.
During her travels to South Africa, Jeannie had the opportunity to visit an HIV clinic supported by the Foundation of Professional Development, which is a partner of GHLI. 

Jeannie explained how fantastic it was to see their electronic medical system because it ensured efficient operations. She also noted how effectively the clinic set up routine transportation for the local population and those in the surrounding rural areas to get HIV treatment. 

Jeannie expects that after GHLI’s conference this year, both the South African and Rwandan delegations, along with other participating delegations, will execute the plans developed at Yale when back in their country. To read more about the upcoming conference, visit our website at yale.edu/ghli

Amanda Sorrentino, GHLI Intern

April 1, 2011

Organizational Culture: The Cost-Effective Solution for Hospital Success

        The hospital chosen for a patient with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) could be a life or death decision. Mortality rates for AMI patients are not the same in all hospitals, and until recently, the reason why these differences occurred was unknown. A new published in the March issue of Annals of Internal Medicine from the Yale Global Health Leadership Institute addresses the discrepancies between why some heart patients see better results at certain hospitals. Entitled, “What distinguishes top performing hospitals in AMI mortality rates,” lead author GHLI research scientist Leslie Curry and colleagues investigated ‘what works’ inside a hospital to achieve better mortality outcomes for patients with heart attacks.

The study used qualitative data from 11 hospitals by utilizing site visits and interviews with 158 key hospital staff. The study discovered organizational values and goals differentiated high performing hospitals from low performing hospitals, along with senior management involvement, communication and coordination and problem solving and learning.

Elizabeth Bradley, GHLI’s faculty director and senior author on the paper, explains why these findings are important to the medical and health community. “Our research shows that the key facets to safety and quality in hospitals may not be new gadgets. The essential ingredients are not expensive. If we could implement our findings in more hospitals, we could improve quality without adding to costs.” Curry adds, “We found that it is important to pay attention to the relational aspects of work. It was not just what the hospitals were doing but how they were doing it.”

This study helps support GHLI’s ongoing efforts to strengthen health care systems and ensure health equity and quality for all through evidence-based research, as stated in their mission.

To read more about this study, please visit our website at yale.edu/ghli or read about it in the Wall Street Journal Blog.

Amanda Sorrentino, GHLI Intern