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ICMR launches Grants Programme for Implementation Research on Maternal and Child Health
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Ramesh Shankar, Mumbai
May 26 , 2017
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The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has launched the Grants
Programme for Implementation Research on Maternal and Child Health.
“Implementation
research is the scientific inquiry into questions concerning
implementation—the act of carrying an intention into effect, which in
health research can be policies, programmes, or individual practices
(collectively called interventions).” IR can consider any aspect of
implementation - including the factors affecting implementation, the
processes of implementation, and the results of implementation,
including how to introduce potential solutions into a health system or
how to promote their large scale use and sustainability.
The
intent is to understand what, why, and how interventions work in “real
world” settings and to test approaches to improve them. National
Implementation Research platform: Realising the need and relevance, a
national platform for technical support for implementation research (IR)
has been created to address maternal and child health issues including
nutrition. This platform aims to provide opportunity to frame
implementation research in the most useful and imaginative way to
contribute to effective scale up of MNCH care.
The ICMR's
initiative in this regard is significant as India has made significant
progress in reducing under five, neonatal and infant mortality rates and
maternal mortality ratio. However, the rates are still very high in
many parts of the country. Under the National Health Mission (NHM) of
Government of India, evidence based interventions that improve maternal
and child survival are being promoted. Many challenges are being faced
by programme managers while implementing these interventions/programmes.
To achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3, efforts are needed
to reach healthcare for all by ensuring implementation of known
interventions, developing better means of delivery of the existing
interventions to address health issues of mothers and children
specifically in states with high mortality rates, identifying bottleneck
in delivery of health care and finding solutions to remove the
bottlenecks.
The ICMR has now called for Letters of Intent
(LOI) from research institutions and teams within the country who are
involved or interested in implementation research by May 31, 2017.
The
priority areas of this programme include Find and implement effective
strategies to improve quality of care during childbirth in the public
health system to achieve safe and healthy childbirth and early postnatal
care; Develop effective strategies for early identification, referral
and management of high risk pregnancies with clear links between the
different levels of the health system; Find and implement effective
strategies for improving Emergency Obstetric Care (EmOC) services to
successfully manage maternal and fetal complications; Learn how to
effectively implement the new WHO ANC model, to reduce stillbirths and
early neonatal deaths; Develop effective delivery of evidence-based care
protocols/ algorithms for prevention and management of post partum
haemorrhage at different levels of care Newborn Health; and Develop and
implement at scale strategies to provide high quality care for small and
sick babies in hospitals (SNCUs).
Other priority areas of this
programme include Develop and implement strategies at scale for
integrated and comprehensive maternal and newborn health care package
across the continuum of care (improve link between care in labour room,
postpartum ward and SNCU); Strategies to scale up Home Based Newborn
Care: Role assignment and rationalization for frontline workers, barrier
identification and mitigation, cost effectiveness; Implementation at
scale of treatment of suspected neonatal sepsis at outpatient level
(sub-centre, PHC, CHC or hospital) when inpatient treatment is not
possible; Develop and implement strategies for effective maternal and
perinatal and newborn healthcare in the urban areas; achieving high
coverage and quality of home-based newborn care in diverse rural /
tribal / urban settings; harnessing mobile technology; and Establishing
an innovative framework of monitoring and supervision with in-built
mechanism of accountability to improve performance of frontline workers
and health personnel involved in neonatal care (e.g., physical
supervision; engaging PRIs and clients; use of ICT, telemedicine,
mHealth).
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