Dr. Samuel Bernard leads a training session with the new cadre of C2C Community Health Workers

Dear Friends,

As you know, we opened our fourth clinic last month as part of our formal collaboration with the Haitian Ministry of Health to create a public-private partnership (PPP) to rehabilitate existing public clinics to achieve high benchmarks of service delivery and quality.

We know that rehabilitating clinic buildings and ensuring that doors are open to patients each day doesn’t necessarily improve the health of a community. Poor families need support to be able to consistently access care and to be empowered with the health education they need to make healthy choices. That’s why we pair our clinical services with community health programming: services that complement clinic-based care with community-based screenings, home visits, and education opportunities.

Earlier this year, we overhauled the scope of our existing community health programming by hiring a new cadre of 8 Community Health Workers (CHWs) devoted solely to home-based follow-up to the clinic experience. CHWs can close a critical gap in the continuum of care, helping to ensure measurable clinical improvements for patients. It’s an exciting evolution for our organization and we want to be able to offer this level of accountability to our key stakeholders: our patients.

The New Community Health Initiative:

Program Highlights:

• Each C2C clinic is now staffed with two clinical personnel devoted solely on home-based and community-based care and follow-up: one Community Health Nurse and one Community Health Agent.
• CHWs conduct home visits, provide education at churches and schools, and convene free health screenings each week to educate community members about the most common threats to health: unclean food and water, poor hygiene, chronic conditions, nutrition, the importance of childhood immunizations, and sexual health.
• This initiative targets some of the most common illnesses we treat in our clinics: acute respiratory infections, anemia, typhoid, and hypertension.
• CHWs are assigned to follow-up at the household level for every patient diagnosed with these illnesses to ensure that the continuum of care is complete and that our patients are not just receiving services, but that they are getting well.
• CHWs will bring with them the necessary medication or follow-up diagnostics or monitoring tools to the patient’s home, such as tablets, blood pressure cuffs and pneumonia monitors to assess and record the health profile of a patient at home or in the community.

CHWs are a vital link between clinic and patient. This level of service delivery is unprecedented in Haiti and we believe that we can demonstrate significant gains against baseline data, proving that the CHW model for follow-up care is measuring improved health outcomes.

One month after the grand opening of the Sinek clinic and, though its impact isn’t fully defined yet, we can clearly see that the community is happy to see its doors open. We began to experience a daily high volume of patients right on opening day. Sinek, the 4th clinic in C2C’s growing network of community clinics, is surrounded by a population of nearly 20,000 people. Prior to its re-opening, the community lacked access to reliable, high-quality medical services.

We recently sat down with C2C’s Chief Operating Officer, Dr. Samuel Bernard, to reflect on the journey of re-opening the Sinek clinic, its success in such a short period of time, and to discuss C2C’s model evolution towards a Public-Private Partnership (PPP). Dr. Samuel told us that he was very excited about C2C’s partnership with Haiti’s Ministry of Health (MSPP) and, in particular, the renovation of failing public clinics. This partnership gives us the ability to breathe “new life” into these existing clinics. Dr. Jasmin, the Director of the Northern Department at the Haitian Ministry of Health, was just as thrilled as we were to embark on this mutually-beneficial journey.

Dr. Bernard shares his reflections about embarking on the PPP journey that begins with the grand opening of Sinek:

Addressing Concerns:

We knew Sinek was the right place to start, considering the clinic wasn’t functional: patients never saw a doctor- only a nurse assistant and did not have any meds, exams, or lab tests to offer. At the same time, we knew we had to tackle a mountain of challenges before opening day. Despite the best efforts of the government to staff and equip a public clinic in Sinek, there simply was not enough public funding to pay salaries, secure the supply chain, or provide electricity or running water.

In order to tackle the internal issues and operations of the clinic, we had to address the many external challenges, such as:

• Sourcing construction materials that weren’t available in Haiti
• Assessing the community and understanding what types of services they need
• Educating the community about C2C’s model and how it differs from the public clinics

Grand Opening:

Community members were excited and happy to see the changes to the clinic.
The Ministry of Health was glad to see that the clinic was supporting the community and that we wanted to include their input throughout the re-opening process. We had an overwhelming amount of feedback stressing that this is the only clinic that the community has and that they so are glad that they can depend on it to stay open and functional. The renovations to the clinic (from the inside and out) showed that our partnership with the government was headed in the right direction and it gave people hope that the Public-Private Partnership was indeed a winning model.

C2C Model Evolution:

Since the early years in Haiti, C2C developed methods for community-based market research, established key partnerships, built a local brand, and iterated core operating protocols (staffing, task-shifting, electronic medical records, quality standards). We believe that our model, having demonstrated both health impact and business traction, is ready for replication to new communities.

C2C is growing its network in northern Haiti. We now operate 4 clinics with plans to open another 6 clinics in the next two years, reaching 50,000 people annually by 2020. We have always worked in close collaboration with the Haitian Ministry of Health, offering national priority programs like immunizations and antenatal care free-of-charge. Starting with Sinek, we have begun to formally expand our collaboration with the Ministry to a public-private partnership (PPP) model, rehabilitating existing public clinics to achieve high benchmarks of service delivery and quality, by adopting the C2C model for clinic management.

Sinek patients have welcomed C2C with open arms and are happy that the clinic is clean, safe, professional, and trustworthy. This successful start to the partnership gives Haiti’s government hope that replication in other communities is possible and on a path to transforming healthcare in Haiti.

Dear Friends,

Last week, we announced that C2C will officially open the doors of a new clinic in Sinek, northern Haiti, next month. This will be the 4th clinic in our growing network of community clinics. The community of nearly 20,000 lacks access to reliable, high-quality medical services. Despite the best efforts of the government to staff and equip a public clinic in Sinek, there simply isn’t enough public funding to pay salaries, secure the supply chain, or provide electricity or running water. C2C is proud to partner with the Haitian government to give the Sinek clinic a “new life” and to serve the community in perpetuity.

Step One: Guarantee a reliable supply chain for essential medicines. 

Under government management, the Sinek clinic is able to stock only 6 to 8 different medicines and regularly experiences stock-outs because of failures up the supply chain. Under C2C’s model, the Sinek clinic will stock over 35 medicines. Reliability is a fundamental brand attribute of C2C clinics: we promise our patients that the medicine they need will always be in stock. We’ve developed an inventory and supply chain system that leverages efficiencies across the clinic network.

See our “before and after” photos below! The transformation of the Sinek pharmacy is well underway and we cannot wait to welcome our first patients to the revitalized public clinic in April.

AFTER:

Stay tuned as we bring you more information next week about how the clinic is transforming. But first, a CALL TO ACTION! We would appreciate if you could take just a moment to do the following:

1.   Follow us on social media:
   Facebook 
   Twitter
   LinkedIn
2.  Forward this email to a friend and ask them to follow C2C! 

We want to build our community of supporters and advocates far and wide so that the community of Sinek and the new clinic know that we are following their success!

Dear Friends,

After several months of planning and hard work, we are excited to announce that the newly renovated C2C Sinek clinic is finally open to the public! The opening of this clinic marks an important milestone in Haiti’s healthcare sector.

While this is the 4th clinic in C2C’s growing network, it is the first clinic re-opening project as part of a new public-private partnership (PPP) strategy to rehabilitate underperforming government clinics across the country. This innovative partnership with Haiti’s government allows C2C to identify flagging public clinics and give them a “new life” of operational excellence and health impact.

Step Five: Strengthen the relationship between the clinic and Sinek community to effectively address and meet community needs

Dr. Jasmin addressing the community members and staff at new Sinek clinic grand opening

In an effort to ensure a smooth transition at Sinek, we invited the community to attend the grand opening ceremony last week. Many community members were in attendance, as well as local government leaders and the Director of the Northern Department at the Haitian Ministry of Health, Dr. Ernst-Robert Jasmin. All attendees got the opportunity to take a tour of the clinic and learn about its new and wide-ranging services. In his opening remarks, Dr. Jasmin said:

We began the journey to transform the Sinek clinic by leveraging the assets the Ministry of Health already had in place. While a clinic building already stood at the site, its infrastructure was in very poor condition. As construction got underway to ensure a proper foundation, we also trained newly-hired and current staff members to standardize clinic operations and to integrate electronic medical records at Sinek.

The “before” and “after” photos (below) illustrate the transformation process of the Sinek clinic: 

Clinic Renovation