Health -Medicine Jobs at Makerere University Walter Reed Project and other Companies

JOB DETAILS:
Position Number: MUWRP/15/11/2022
Position Title: Clinical Coach (2) positions
Position Location: Buvuma HC IV
Contract Tenure: 1 year with a possibility of extension subject to availability of funding.
Position summary: The candidate will serve as a Clinical Coach at MUWRP, based in Buvuma HC IV

Key Duties and Responsibilities:
General Position Description:
• Participate in the diagnosis, treatment and management of HIV patients and support in identification, diagnosis and management of TB/HIV co-infected cases.
• Support the periodic collection of accurate, consistent and timely programmatic data as may be required by MUWRP/PEPFAR & MOH at the MUWRP supported Facilities in Buvuma to support the M & E of the program performance.
• Use site level data to identify and address performance gaps in the provision of adult, paediatric, HEI/EID and adolescent HIV care and treatment and build capacity through facility Work Improvement Teams (WITs)
• Work in close collaboration with District QI coaches, committees, Facility in charges, ART and PMTCT focal persons, expert clients, mentor mothers, YAPS and other peers to coordinate, facilitate, and track monthly facility performance and quality improvement activities in identification, linkage to care, retention, adherence and viral load monitoring and suppression for adults, children and adolescents in care.
• Support the District QI Committees and coaches in implementing District paediatric and adolescent HIV prevention, care and treatment QI plans conducting integrated QI coaching and mentorship activities for the health facilities based on performance data.
• Conduct regular targeted mentorship and coaching activities at the assigned facilities on the adult, paediatric, HEI/EID and adolescent HIV care package 2-3 days per week per facility on the HIV cascade.
• Provide support for reporting adult, paediatric and adolescent HIV care and treatment QI activities and results in accordance with the Health Sector QI framework and strategic plan
• Support health facilities to report to DHIS2, MER, CQI, Surge and ensure dashboards are maintained and updated.
• Contribute to the documentation and dissemination of HIV care & treatment QI related activities, progress, successes, lessons learned, and best practices through participation in facility, district, and regional QI collaborative learning and adaptation sessions.
• Participate in district progress review meetings on a quarterly basis.
• Participate in capacity building activities – e.g. site-level trainings, web-based updates through Webinars on Zoom/Teams to increase knowledge and skills of health workers and volunteers in the provision of adult, paediatric and adolescent HIV services.

Required Education and Experience
• Diploma in Clinical Medicine, Nursing, Public health and other health related fields
• A minimum of 2 years’ work experience as a clinical coach in an HIV prevention, care and treatment program
• Knowledge of continuous quality improvement approaches at district and/or health facility level.
• Working knowledge and experience in Buvuma District providing technical
• Clear understanding of current Uganda ART guidelines.
• Experience in using data to improve program performance and/or supporting facility-based quality improvement teams.
• Ability to translate findings or technical concepts into accessible messages via trainings or written materials, which will serve to transfer knowledge and skills to the Demonstrated ability to interact with persons from a variety of professionals.
• Possesses core competencies: Innovation, Accountability, Service Excellence,
• Proficient in the use of Microsoft office software, especially Word, Excel and Power point.
• Fluency in English required (oral and written).
• Physical Availability:
• Ability to be resident and work in the district of Buvuma, supporting all facilities.
• Supervisory Controls
• The Incumbent will serve under the immediate supervision of the Technical Advisor – Care and Treatment

JOB DETAILS:

Job Title : PhD Fellowship (3 years): Towards Health Systems Resilience in Africa: Harnessing experiences and enhancing capacity, frameworks and tools

At the Uganda National Institute of Public Health (UNIPH), a full-time temporary position a full-time temporary position as PhD fellow is available for a period of three (3) years from January 1, 2023.
The position is linked to the program Building stronger public health institutions and systems. This project is a collaboration between UNIPH, Makerere University School of Public Health (MakSPH), and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) and is financed by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad). The PhD Fellow will be hosted by UNIPH and follow the PhD program at MakSPH. Research stay(s) in Norway may be included.
The PhD Fellow will work on a project to interrogate the applicability/robustness/utility of existing frameworks used to access epidemic preparedness and to assess the extent to which lessons from past epidemics have informed health systems strengthening, identify good practices and describe barriers to health systems learning in Africa.

More on the topic:
The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed long persisting economic social and health chasms globally and has resulted in accelerated efforts by governments to secure systems and populations against anticipated future global threats. For countries in Africa which have experienced frequent outbreaks amidst resource constraints, the pandemic had devastating impacts. Advances in health and technologies have led to improvements in reporting of disease outbreaks to WHO/AFRO since the launch of the IDSR strategy in 1998. In fact, epidemic trends for cholera reveal a decline in case fatality rate (CFR), suggesting improvement in detection and quality of response by the health sector.
However, the number of countries affected has by epidemics has increased. Persisting challenges to overcome include poor coordination, weak public health infrastructure, lack of trained workers and inadequate supply of diagnostic, treatment and prevention commodities. Moreover, experience from the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed that although high income countries have scored high on the IHR, JEE and GHSI, they also suffer the same plight of inadequate epidemic preparedness.

The experience gained from health systems shocks and their health and socioeconomic impacts highlights the importance of intentionally building health systems resilience. The African continent has historically faced and continues to face frequent epidemic outbreaks in Africa such as cholera, dysentery, malaria and hemorrhagic fevers (e.g. Ebola, Rift Valley fever, Crimean-Congo fever and yellow fever). With these experiences, Africa ought to have been the most prepared continent for epidemics. Moreover after action reviews to glean lessons and buttress systems ought to have strengthened the systems' ability to respond. A resilient health system is referred to as the degree of change a system can undergo while maintaining its functionality. In order to be resilient, a health system needs to be able to absorb shocks, adapt to them and ultimately transform in anticipation of future onslaughts. The health systems' inability to respond to Covid-19 was not unique to Africa, but cut across other settings which found themselves unprepared for the Covid-19 pandemic. This might to some extent be explained by the different health systems contexts, demographics and economy of countries. This might imply that frameworks to assess epidemic preparedness need to be calibrated for different contexts. There is therefore need to interrogate the veracity/ applicability/robustness of existing frameworks used to access epidemic preparedness given the differences in contexts and demographics across countries. Furthermore, experience gained from health systems shocks and their health and socioeconomic impacts underscores the need to build health systems resilience deliberately and underpin it with public health measures. There is therefore a need to assess the extent to which lessons learned from previous epidemics have been harnessed to strengthen health systems over the past decades, identify good practices and describe barriers to health systems learning in Africa and beyond.

Work tasks:
The PhD fellow will follow the PhD program at MakSPH. He/she will undertake research to:
• Examine the robustness/utility/reliability of existing frameworks for assessing health systems preparedness (including identifying contextual indicators that could be added or comparing frameworks to see best fit)
• Map the level of systems strengthening efforts gleaned from previous epidemics and their adoptions (to what extent do existing systems work eg task forces, surveillance systems existing, after action reviews, where is the focus of government efforts in terms of absorbing, adapting, transforming)
• Identify constrains in capacity building for systems resilience in terms of (Knowledge, Uncertainty, Interdependence and legitimacy (Biddle et al 2020)
• Curate good practices for systems strengthening that could be tested and taken to scale in Africa and beyond
• Propose innovations on how to enhance resilience

Qualifications and personal qualities:
• This call for candidates is open to all Ugandans..
• The successful applicant must be granted a three-year study leave from his or her current position to be employed in this position.
• The successful applicant must have a masters' degree with a minimum overall score of B. The degree must be in public health, epidemiology, or other of similar relevance for the implementation science of the project.
• At least 3 years research experience with fieldwork in public health or other of similar relevance for the implementation science of the project is desirable.
• Experience of project leadership with fieldwork in the public health sector in similar settings as Uganda is desirable.
• At least 3 years experience working with district health systems structures will be an added bonus
• The applicant must have good communication skills both orally and in writing and be fluent in written and oral English. Peer reviewed publications will be an advantage.
• Personal characteristics such as abilities to work independently and collaborate in a team will be emphasized. The applicant must be flexible, solution-oriented and with a strong drive to get things done. To succeed as a PhD fellow, the candidate must have excellent organizational and time-management skills, be motivated and responsible, and have a great work capacity, commitment and enthusiasm for research and dissemination.


We can offer:
• A good and challenging international work environment in a team striving for scientific excellence.
• Statutory social security benefits as listed under the NSSF

Your application must include:
• A brief letter of application stating your motivation for the position, why you are applying and why this position is perfect for you.
• An overview of your education and work experience (CV).
• Copies of diplomas and relevant certificates.
• A list of publications and academic work (max 10).
• Two references (name, contact information, and a brief description of their work- relation to you).

JOB DETAILS:

At the Uganda National Institute of Public Health (UNIPH), Department of Data and Analytics, a full-time temporary position as PhD fellow is available for a period of three (3) years from January 1st, 2023. The position is linked to the program Building stronger public health institutions and systems. This project is a collaboration between UNIPH, Makerere University School of Public Health (MakSPH), and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) and is financed by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad). The PhD Fellow will be hosted by UNIPH and follow the PhD program at MakSPH. Research stay(s) in Norway may be included.
The PhD Fellow will work on a project to explore, identify, and test synergies in birth and death registrations through the strengthening and integration and of the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) and health registries in Uganda.

More on the topic:
The Sustainable Development Goals require complete and timely CRVS data for measuring their indicators, in particular numerators (births, deaths), denominators (total population, live births, total deaths), and determinants (e.g., equity variables). The WHO Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020-2025 and the Guideline Recommendations on Digital Health Interventions for Health Systems Strengthening have highlighted the role of digital health for longitudinal registration of individual-level data and vital events. Traditionally, CRVS systems and health registries are maintained in separate silos representing a missed opportunity for better understanding of population health.
Uganda has made leaps in the digitization of both their CRVS and national ID systems, as well as in the integration of individual level registries in their national health management information systems in DHIS2. Yet, significant challenges remain both in integrating the CRVS and health registries, in the completeness of registration in both systems and in the availability of indicators of high relevance for Universal Health Coverage, such as home births, stillbirths and neonatal deaths, and maternal deaths.

Work tasks:
The PhD fellow will follow the PhD program at MakSPH. He/she will undertake research to:
1. Assess the current birth and death registration systems in CRVS and the health system to identify the barriers, enabling factors, supporting interventions, environment and facilitation strategies to ensure feasibility, acceptability, fidelity, and effectiveness of a fully digitized integrated system at scale.
2. Optimize, through co-design with stakeholders, digital health interventions to support them in their daily work to minimize the data collection, and support better reporting and visualizations, and strengthen the use of data.
3. Implement digital health interventions using a facilitation-based strategy and assess the feasibility, acceptability, fidelity, and effectiveness in Mukono and Buikwe districts, Uganda.

Qualifications and personal qualities:
• This call for candidates is open to all Ugandans.
• The successful applicant must be granted a three-year study leave from his or her current position to be employed in this position.
• The successful applicant must have a masters' degree with a minimum overall score of B. The degree must be in public health, public health informatics, epidemiology or other of similar relevance for the implementation science of the project.
• Research experience with fieldwork in implementation science, public health, public health informatics, or other of similar relevance for the implementation science of the project is desirable.
• Experience of project leadership with fieldwork in the public health or public health informatics sector in similar settings as Uganda is desirable.
• The applicant must have good communication skills both orally and in writing and be fluent in written and oral English.
• Personal characteristics such as abilities to work independently and collaborate in a team will be emphasized. The applicant must be flexible, solution-oriented and with a strong drive to get things done. To succeed as a PhD fellow, the candidate must have excellent organizational and time-management skills, be motivated and responsible, and have a great work capacity, commitment and enthusiasm for research and dissemination.

We can offer:
• A good and challenging international work environment in a team striving for scientific excellence.
• Statutory social security benefits as listed under the NSSF

Your application must include:
• A brief letter of application stating your motivation for the position, why you are applying and why this position is perfect for you.
• An overview of your education and work experience (CV).
• Copies of diplomas and relevant certificates.
• A list of publications and academic work (max 10).
• Two references (name, contact information, and a brief description of their work-relation to you).