Financially-Incentives to Improve Provider Compliance
- Conditions
- Morbidity;InfantCompliant Behavior
- Interventions
- Behavioral: Financially incentivized knowledge assessments
- Registration Number
- NCT04634019
- Lead Sponsor
- Swiss Tropical & Public Health Institute
- Brief Summary
The main objective of this study is to assess whether making health financing streams conditional on provider performance on knowledge assessment can increase provider compliance with under-5 case management guidelines.
- Detailed Description
The main idea of the intervention is to conduct quarterly provider knowledge assessments at health facilities and to pay facilities a bonus if providers perform well on these tests. For the intervention, 12 clinical vignettes were created. These vignettes cover typical patient cases such as malaria, diarrhea and respiratory infections, and assess providers' ability to correctly diagnose and treat hypothetical questions. All medical staff members were informed hat every 3 month there would be a knowledge assessment based on these vignettes and that the results would determine the total bonus payment made to the facility.
Each quarter, facilities receive a supervision visit. During the supervision visits, one provider is randomly chosen for the knowledge assessments, and is tested on two randomly chosen vignette cases.
In order to create a quarterly performance score, the scores on the two vignettes are then averaged. Fifty percent of the overall facility quality score is determined by the general quality checklist that captures basic structural and process features of the facility. The remaining fifty percent are directly determined by the providers' performance on the knowledge assessments. If the overall quality score is below 50%, no quality payments are made. If the quality score is \>=50%, facilities can receive a top-up payment of up to 25% of the quantity-based payments. The total bonus percentage is determined by multiplying the quality score (with ranges between 0 and 100%) with the maximum 25% bonus.
Recruitment & Eligibility
- Status
- ACTIVE_NOT_RECRUITING
- Sex
- All
- Target Recruitment
- 600
- all providers working at the 110 facilities selected for the study will be included in the study.
- none.
Study & Design
- Study Type
- INTERVENTIONAL
- Study Design
- PARALLEL
- Arm && Interventions
Group Intervention Description Financial incentive arm Financially incentivized knowledge assessments Providers in treatment facilities will be visited once a quarter for a knowledge assessment using vignettes. Facilities performing well in this assessment will receive a quarterly bonus payment, which will be distributed among providers.
- Primary Outcome Measures
Name Time Method Compliance with integrated management of childhood illness (IMCI) guidelines Endline (30 months after project start) Compliance will be measured through up to 8 direct observations of under-5 sick child visits at each facility collected over a four-day period. During each visit, trained observes will document how many of the 10 diagnostic steps specified in the WHO's Integrated Management of Child Illness (IMCI) are followed by the provider. Compliance will be defined as least 8 out of 10 diagnostic processes completed.
- Secondary Outcome Measures
Name Time Method Knowledge regarding IMCI guidelines Endline (30 months after project start) Knowledge of IMCI guidelines will be assessed through vignettes administered to providers at baseline and endline. A total of five vignettes will be given to providers, each describing a scenario involving a sick child under age 5. An overall knowledge score will be created to measure the extent to which the diagnosis and treatment chosen by providers matches those specified in the nationally used Integrated Management of Child Illness guidelines.
Trial Locations
- Locations (2)
Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute
🇨ðŸ‡Basel, BS, Switzerland
Congo Ministry of Public Health
🇨🇩Kinshasa, Congo, The Democratic Republic of the