Quality of Provided Services

The indicator is used for assessing pre-selected aspects of the quality of the supported services.

Determine the indicator's value by using the following methodology:

1) Define the main Quality Standards the supported service providers should meet, such as (in the case of veterinarians) "cool chain is ensured for all administered vaccines" or "syringes are disposed of in designated places".

2) Prepare structured checklists where the data collectors can quickly record the extent to which a service provider meets the selected Quality Standards (fully / largely / partially / not at all). 

3) Collect the required data from all or from a representative sample of service providers using observations, review of records, interviews and other methods. For each standard, record whether it was met fully, largely, partially or not at all. 

4) For each service provider, calculate its score by allocating 3 points if a standard was met "fully", 2 points if it was met "largely", 1 point if it was met "partially", and no points if it wasn't met at all. 

5) Divide the total number of points gained by a service provider by the possible maximum of points (for example, if you use 7 standards, the maximum is 7 x 3 points = 21 points). Multiply the result by 100 to convert it to a percentage. The result is the percentage of pre-defined Quality Standards that were met by the service provider.

6) To calculate the indicator’s value:

   - count the number of service providers who gained at least the minimum percentage of the pre-defined Quality Standards (the % is defined in the wording of the indicator)

   - divide it by the total number of surveyed service providers

   - multiply the result by 100 to convert it to a percentage

1) If you are less interested in the quality of the services and more in the overall performance of the service providers, just change the Quality Standards to "Performance Standards" and define broader, performance-related standards (including promotion and marketing practices, bookkeeping, etc.).

2) Always ensure that all data collectors have the same understanding of what exactly the given standards mean and when they can be considered either fully, largely or partially met.

3) The standards should only cover those aspects of quality that were promoted / supported as a part of the project for which you are collecting this data.

4) Designing the list of Quality Standards could be done with the participation of service providers themselves. This could encourage their buy-in into the process, their understanding of how standards are defined, and potentially their uptake of practices. Checklists of best practices, which can include the Quality Standards in question, may be left with service providers to hold themselves to as standard, or for their own record keeping purposes.