Our Community Health Workers (CHWs) are extraordinary women who each provide medical services to hundreds—sometimes thousands—of people in their communities. One of their roles is to search actively for malaria cases, diagnose malaria with rapid finger-prick tests, and treat positive tests with three days of malaria pills. Constantly seeking to improve and save more lives, our CHWs organized a Quality Improvement Campaign in March of this year, with dedicated support from Quality Improvement Coordinator Amber Gladney, and Health Program Manager, Dr. Djoumé Diakité.

The campaign’s first goal was to increase the number of children younger than five years assessed for malaria within the first day of symptoms.  It is important to reach children with malaria fast, because most children killed by malaria die within 48 hours of their first symptom. In effort to reach children faster, CHWs began working intensively at weekly meetings to identify existing barriers to early malaria assessment, establish strategies to overcome these barriers, and regularly review their own progress.

The effects have been tangible. From May 2010-May 2011, children assessed and/or treated by CHWs for malaria symptoms increased from 32% to 68%. 19% of this increase occurred within the ten week period of the Quality Improvement Campaign.

The CHWs attribute these improvements to several new strategies, including their increased effort to clearly publicize their roles in the emerging healthcare system here. They are mobilizing their neighbors to seek early treatment for their children and to encourage their neighbors to do so too. In an initial Quality Improvement meeting, Ma Cissé, CHW team leader,  proclaimed, “We have to use a tool our people are proud of: word of mouth! When you're at the market, during baby naming ceremonies, at weddings, and in women's group meetings, talk about the importance of early treatment!”

Our next quality improvement objective: Increasing the number of pregnant women attending prenatal consultations. We have built up great momentum from our childhood rapid malaria treatment campaign to carry on to our next. As Amber puts it, "The pride our team feels for the dedication and work ethic of the CHWs is overwhelming. From the bottom of our hearts, we offer them our most deep-felt 'Aw ni baara!' or 'Excellent work!'"