Since its inception, the SQH network has shown that social franchising can effectively target high-quality and affordable reproductive health services to low-income women. In 2003 and 2004, providers in the SQH network expanded beyond offering reproductive health services to include services for the diagnosis and treatment of STIs, malaria and TB.
In 2001, the Medical Association of Myanmar (MMA) initiated a partnership with Sun Quality Health to further its own mission of providing quality services to low income people. The MMA is a professional association with a mission to improve the capacity and service quality of private doctors. The partnership has been mutually beneficial to MMA and the Sun Quality Franchise; it has improved the competency and efficiency of each individual doctor and the availability of high quality services to target low income clients.
Sun Quality Health is also set to bring cervical cancer screening and cryotherapy for positive cases at its franchised clinics. The service would be available for less than a dollar per patient.
In terms of its achievements, by working with pre-existing private practitioners the Sun Quality Health network has been able to reach large numbers of low-income families in a short time. As of March 2006, the network included 689 active members located in 120 townships. Sun Quality Health covers approximately 65% of urban areas and 15% of rural areas. As of 2011, the program contributd to 13% of the national TB case coverage.
PSI Myanmar first piloted the use of vouchers in 2005 and since then has launched 11 such OBA schemes for FP/RH services as well as TB screening and treatment. Vouchers are mainly used for long term FP methods and reach 30,000 patients per annum.
Achievements to date:
- Conducted more than 1,374,400 reproductive health consultations
- Provided more than 500,616 couple-years of protection against unwanted pregnancy
- Diagnosed and treated 24,000 cases of p. falciparum malaria
- Diagnosed and treated more than 48,000 cases of STI
- Detected, registered and began DOTS treatment for more than 9,000 cases of TB
- Demonstrated improvement in key indicators of quality of care amongst participating providers
- 70% of Sun Quality health clients classified as amongst the poorest 50% of the population
Quality assurance (QA) and performance monitoring methods include: site visits, internal clinical audits, mystery clients, vignettes, client exit interviews, provider surveys, and mapping studies.
QA findings are directly fed back to providers, and are used for analysis and reporting to the Health Services Department.
