On the territory of CIS countries, the project will be implemented in the Kyrgyz Republic for the first time as the country has experience in development and implementation of reforms in health care.
Now there is a realization of the pre-pilot part of the project for testing mechanisms of evaluation, and financing rules in the Chui regional hospital.
The project aims at improving quality of healthcare. It supports government's objectives to increase efficiency and effectiveness of public expenditure of health sector through the provision of sound and transparent framework for the financing of health care organizations based on the results. The main goal of this project is to address two important objectives in health sector: improving quality of care for mother and child and more efficient use of funds.
The volume of grant funds for the RBF project is USD 11 million. The project will last for 3 years and will last until the end of 2017.
The project will involve 42 hospitals at the rayon level, divided into two groups, 21 hospitals per each. The selection of hospitals into different groups will be carried out by random method with participation of the Government of KR, NGOs, civil society and mass media.
Main part of the funds, in the amount of USD 8.6 million will be sent to territorial, mainly to rayon hospitals, and hospitals in small towns. Up to 40% of received funds are allowed to spend for hospital’s repairs in maternity wards, children's departments and pediatric intensive care. For the remaining money they will purchase equipment and instruments, medicines for children and pregnant women, reagents, medical items for provision of hygiene.
The system of financing of hospitals on RBF project is based on the results of performance and is carried out if they have progressive indicators of qualitative medical care. To evaluate work of hospital the Scorecard was developed with specific set of criteria and indicators. Evaluation is carried out on a quarterly basis with participation of peers from other hospitals with using Scorecard. According to the results of evaluation incentive payments are made from RBF project.
Funding of hospitals is carried out by Treasury system. In order to prevent corruption in the evaluation of hospitals’ performance, every six months counter verifications of results will be made by group of external experts, including representatives of NGOs, professional health associations, international partners working in the Kyrgyz Republic.
Monitoring of the project realization is carried out by National Steering Committee, consisting of representatives of the Government, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Finance of the KR, MHIF.
To ensure technical implementation of the project, Ministry of Health established a RBF Secretariat consisting of 14 people. At the present 6 people are working.
Main benefiters of the project are mothers and neonatal according to improving quality of medical services, as well as medical professionals and health organizations through improvement of infrastructure, material and technical equipment.
Similar projects, as RBF project were applied in different countries with high, average and low-income countries, including Australia, Britain, New Zealand and other. In many cases, RBF has been successful evidence in change of behavior of health providers and extending use of cost-effective interventions in health care. On the territory of CIS countries, this project is being implemented for the first time in the Kyrgyz Republic, as the country has experience in the development and conducting reforms in health care.