District Lead, TB – Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI)

The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries, while strengthening the capabilities of governments and the private sector in those countries to create and sustain high-quality health systems. For more information, please visit http//www.clintonhealthaccess.org

CHAI is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and is committed to providing an environment of fairness, and mutual respect where all applicants have access to equal employment opportunities. CHAI values diversity and inclusion, and recognizes that our mission is best advanced by the leadership and contributions of people with diverse experience, backgrounds, and culture.

CHAI, in partnership with its India affiliate William J Clinton Foundation (WJCF), works in close partnership with and under the guidance of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) at the Central and States’ levels on an array of high priority initiatives aimed at improving health outcomes. Currently CHAI works across projects to expand access to quality service, prevention, diagnostics, care, and treatment for HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis-C, tuberculosis, vector borne diseases, nutrition, anaemia, pneumonia, diarrhoea, sexual and reproductive health, cancer, oxygen, COVID-19, AMR, immunization, disease surveillance, and safe drinking water.

Talent is the fundamental driver of WJCF’s success in helping save lives and reduce the burden of disease. WJCF’s organizational values reflect its relentless endeavour of hiring, nurturing, empowering, and celebrating diverse and high calibre individuals who come together to work as cohesive teams. WJCF places a high premium on providing its staff with an enabling environment that encourages entrepreneurship, humility, respect, equal share of voice and fosters high impact innovation to address some of the most challenging healthcare issues.

Project Overview:

India has the highest burden of Tuberculosis (TB) globally, accounting for more than 26% of the global TB incidence in 2020 and 38% of the TB deaths among HIV negative and HIV positive people. Of the 2.6 million annual estimated incidence, more than half access diagnosis and care in the private sector. There are significant gaps across the care cascade because of diagnostic delays, irrational and non-standardized regimens and catastrophic health expenditure to patients. WJCF works to support multiple programs across the country to extend the quality of TB care to patients in both the public and the private sectors.

Differentiated TB care project focuses on reducing TB mortality in India and aims to operationalize the NTEP & NHM’s guidelines on differentiated care for TB in Ayushmann Bharat Health & Wellness centres (AB-HWCs) at the PHC & SHC level. This would include early screening, identifying severely ill patients, evaluating risk as required, and referring them to secondary/tertiary care facilities, thereby ultimately achieving timely intervention with an aim to reduce TB mortality. WJCF will be implementing the project in four geographies, namely, Srinagar (J&K), Durg (Chhattisgarh), Sikar (Rajasthan) and Muzaffarpur (Bihar), with four critical activities detailed below:

• Gap Assessment in terms of diagnostics, therapeutics, HR, infrastructure, and TB service delivery at HWCs, relative to operational guidelines for TB care
  Development and implementation of a unified, digitally compliant risk assessment tool for early identification of severely ill patients,
• Mapping of health facilities for enabling linkages to  diagnostic/treatment/indoor services, which might not be available at AB-HWCs
• Build a comprehensive training module package on differentiated TB care and train Healthcare and Wellness staff, including ASHA, ANMs, and CHOs
• The project will help create a Standardized Operating Procedure (SOP) based on the learnings and inform the NTEP’s scale-up plans at the national, state, district, and sub-district levels.

Position Summary:

WJCF seeks a District Lead with excellent communication and articulation skills. The ideal candidate should have a working relationship with District NTEP and the General health system staff. The District Lead will report directly to Project Lead based in Delhi and will work closely with the National-Level M&E analyst to support field level implementation of the project. We value qualities such as integrity in work, tenacity of purpose, and a strong work ethic.

Responsibilities

• Lead the project at the state through strong program management and ensure implementation of programmatic strategies to achieve the program objectives in close coordination with the National program management team
• Develop strong relationships with the respective block (CHO/MO/ANM) & district level (DTO/CMHO/CS) for effective implementation of program activities and engage them by conducting regular meetings, updating them on project progress and learnings
• Support the development of project implementation manual and monitoring tools, including protocols, processes, and standard operating procedures
• Develop and drive specific field level strategies in alignment with overall program objectives and prepare a monthly activity plan to achieve the relevant milestones
• Undertake regular field visits with NTEP and general health systems staff to gather patient-level insights and review project progress periodically with Stakeholders and project staff
• Identify training needs and design, plan and conduct training programs, workshops, meetings, and campaigns in coordination with the National team
• Finalize intervention HWC sites based on geographical representation, infrastructural capacity, and discussion with DTO, CMO & district staff
• Synthesize learning and experience through the project activities and share them internally and externally through presentations, reports, and briefs.
• Apprise and advocate to stakeholders on the results and learnings from the project and drive decisions to scale up such activities at other sites (HWCs)
• Develop a thorough understanding of the national guidance on differentiated
• TB care at Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness C enters (AB-HWCs)
• Network with other NGO partners to drive collaborative engagement
• Lead recruitment efforts in the district for relationship officers and others as required, and train them in project activities
• Plan and drive the activities undertaken by relationship officer(s)
• Other responsibilites as needed

Qualifications

• Postgraduate with MSW/MPH/MBA
• Minimum of 4 years of experience leading a project in the development sector is desired; healthcare experience will be an advantage
• Languages: Excellent written and spoken command of English and the local language
• Good moderation, facilitation, and training skills
• Experience leading primary-level data collection for surveys, program interventions, M&E operations, etc.
• Ability to transform data into valuable insights and communicate them (orally and in written form) to a variety of audiences
• Strong problem-solving skills, critical thinking, and analytical capabilities
• High level of proficiency in Microsoft Office (MS Word- High, Excel – Intermediate, and PowerPoint- Intermediate)
• Ability to multi-task, set priorities, and be effective under tight deadlines and in high-pressure situations
• Willingness to travel if required and at short notice