In Kebbi State, HSCL ACE 3 project supported the Case Managers and other Healthcare Workers in the project-supported facilities through routine supervisory visits and virtual engagements. Daily situation room meetings were held with Case Managers for performance review and capacity building. The project also met with relevant stakeholders and actors in the State to discuss the smooth running of the project in the state.
The project also deployed the Operation Reach, Recapture, Refill, Retain in two weeks (4R-in-2) model, a retention strategy that brought Case Managers, Community Case Workers, OVC Team, facility M&E, Viral Load Champions together to support active tracking of eligible clients for refills and viral load sample collection, defaulters and IITs.
This operation leveraged the State Retention Squad that consists of 5 teams across the state to cover the various local governments where 95% of our clients are located.
The Retention Squad and Operation 4R-in-2 has so far fostered interfacility and facility-community tracking collaboration and resources sharing. This helped teams leverage the available limited resources effectively through effective, targeted and goal-oriented partnership and learning from results/outcomes for data-driven decision making.
85 new HIV positive clients were provided with timely and comprehensive package of care including screening for Advanced HIV Disease, linkage to care, assisted referrals for enrolment, timely initiation of treatment with optimal regimen with Tenofovir-Lamivudine-Dolutegravir for adults.
In this quarter, the team also collaborated with the State TB Program to commence 3 co-infected new clients on Anti-Kochs and delivered Tuberculosis Preventive Therapy to 82 new clients who were screened negative. 2404 returning clients were screened for drug refill for TB, out of which 15 were presumptive, and 1 was diagnosed TB Positive and commenced on anti-kochs treatment.
The team visited supported facilities for regular chart reviews to identify and promptly close gaps across the HIV/TB treatment cascades and provide hands-on mentoring and preceptorship to healthcare workers for continuous quality improvement. Clients were devolved into (4) Community-Based and (7) Facility-Based DSD models that simplified the biometric capturing of clients with refills. Facility and community teams collaborated to track eligible clients, defaulters and IIT clients.
The project is currently recalibrating its retention strategies, re-engineering the team, re-aligning clients into preferred DSD models, and stepping up engagement with the community teams to change the narratives around refill rate in the new months and other quarters ahead. This operation, in addition to ongoing capacity building sessions for the Case Managers, promises a robust retention platform for the State with sustained implementation.
The team collaborated with the Kebbi State AIDS and STI Control Program (SASCP) and the Clinical Mentorship Program through Stakeholders Meeting in supportive facility visits to ensure ongoing program quality and sustainability. The NEPWHAN group was also engaged in Stakeholders Meeting and Clients Tracking.
As part of efforts to increase the quality of care, HSCL ACE3 collaborated with NASCP, PHIS3 and DATA.FI teams to train both GoN (SASCP, Facility M&E) and Adhoc Staff across the ACE3 States, who in turn serve as Surveillance Supervisors and VA Interviewers.
