BWH Awarded Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Grant
NEW YORK - The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation's African Health Initiative has awarded an eight million dollar research grant to Brigham and Women's Hospital's program to strengthen and study community-based, integrated primary health care systems in rural Rwanda. In partnership with Harvard University and Partners In Health, BWH is working with the Rwandan Ministry of Health to implement and study an innovative model of comprehensive, community-based health care in two rural districts in Rwanda.
The DDCF grant will help the partners expand their community-based model to additional health centers and strengthen the medical and social services they provide beyond HIV and tuberculosis to address the full spectrum of primary health care needs and chronic diseases. An electronic medical record developed initially for HIV/AIDS and TB patients will be expanded to use for all health services. Research will evaluate improvements in health outcomes at the district and local levels, as well as the costs and cost-effectiveness of the model.
The grant awarded to BWH is one of four research grants totaling 44 million dollars. "We are proud to support this challenging but critical work," said Ed Henry, President of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. "We hope the foundation's grants will provide the funding and flexibility the four partnerships need to address some of the delivery gaps that will improve the healthcare systems in the regions where they are working."
BWH was selected by members of the African Health Initiative's Advisory Council and other experts in epidemiology, health economics and statistics. After reviewing the submitted planning grant proposal, the selection committee considered the proposed program's potential to significantly strengthen the local health system and improve health, the strength and quality of the team, the presence of local leadership, the alignment with local and national activities, the ability to build on existing programs, and the innovation and potential for replication.
The DDCF African Health Initiative was launched in 2007 to fund partnerships between teams of researchers, practitioners and local governments that will strengthen fragile health systems and address inefficiencies that prevent health agencies from providing higher quality integrated healthcare. The close collaboration between the research teams and government health systems is a unique feature of these partnerships. The researchers will both ensure
the delivery of health services and rigorously measure the impact of these services on people's lives. Importantly, government involvement will ensure that the programs are aligned with national plans and policies, which should improve their sustainability when DDCF funding ends.
In the fall of 2009, the research team will begin by analyzing health system performance and establishing baseline measures to determine the impact
of the interventions on health outcomes.
Brigham and Women's is one of four organizations to receive a multimillion-dollar grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s African Health Initiative, out of more than 100 initial applicants. The DDCF African Health Initiative seeks to strengthen health systems by supporting partnerships that link implementation research and workforce training directly to the large-scale delivery of integrated primary healthcare in sub-Saharan Africa.
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