Are you involved in an HIV prevention initiative and interested in applying a quality improvement/quality assurance tool to one of your projects or programs?
If so, get involved in Quality Action and link with the Quality Action partner in your country.
Quality Action is the EU co-funded ‘Joint Action on Improving Quality in HIV Prevention’ involving 45 partner organisations from 26 Member States, which started on 1 March 2013.
Quality Action promotes practical tools and materials to maximise the quality of HIV prevention projects and programmes. Five practical quality improvement tools are ready, available and translated into a range of European languages. Quality Action has trained more than 400 quality improvement trainers and facilitators from 25 different European countries. More than 80 practical applications of the tools have been carried out and documented in case studies.
Quality Action has developed a policy kit which offers policy makers the rationale and concrete actions for integrating quality improvement into HIV prevention policies, strategies and action plans. The ‘Charter for Quality in HIV Prevention’ summarises quality principles, criteria and key activities to put quality improvement into practice and offer practitioners, experts, policy makers and all other stakeholders the opportunity to commit to improving their work in HIV prevention.
Committing to key principles and criteria for improving quality
The Charter states the principles and criteria for quality in HIV prevention and calls on stakeholders to support and apply quality improvement. Not only must approaches, interventions and methods for HIV prevention be appropriate to the situation they address, they must be carried out at a high level of quality to maximise effectiveness.
You can download the Charter here
This Charter was created by the representatives of Quality Action. You can support it by becoming a signatory as an organisation or as an individual.
The event provided the opportunity to take stock of the latest developments in improving quality in HIV prevention. Key results and practical experience gained during Quality Action were discussed and presented in interactive formats. Highlights of the conference were the launch of a new Charter for Quality in HIV Prevention as well as the presentation of the project’s Policy Kit with policy statements and strategic actions to support quality improvement in HIV prevention at the national and regional levels. Furthermore, the conference provided opportunities to learn more about the concepts and tools of Quality Action.
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PIQA is a quality assurance tool developed within an area of health promotion and prevention that has evidence of best practice and standards available, e.g. health promotion and prevention targeting people who inject drugs (PWID). PIQA is based on the already existing Health Promotion Effect Management Instrument (Preffi), which is a validated quality assurance tool for increasing the effectiveness of health promotion projects. Through cooperation with ECDC and EMCDDA, it has been adapted to recent guidelines and research findings. PIQA has been developed, tested and evaluated as part of Quality Action.
Download the PIQA tool here v. 0.8 (interactive .pdf)
the PIQA tool is also available in the following languages: DE – IT – LT – SK – HR
Download the PIQA User Guide: EN – HR – IT – LT
Download PIQA factsheet here (.pdf)
Shift has been designed specifically for programmes rather than projects. We use the word ‘program’ for combinations of interventions that work together to achieve a change in health status such as reducing new HIV infections. Programmes are often on-going, as compared to projects that have an end date. Examples of programs are national or regional HIV prevention action plans or comprehensive services incorporating testing, counselling, outreach, needle exchange and condom distribution.
Shift is based on already existing tools such as the Global AIDS Response Progress Reporting (GARPR) set including the National Commitments and Policies Instrument (NCPI), used worldwide by UNAIDS and adapted for Europe by ECDC to collect relevant data on HIV programmes at the national level, and elements of the other already existing, validated quality improvement tools such as Succeed.
Shift and its supporting materials have been developed, tested and evaluated within the context of Quality Action.
Download Shift tool here (interactive pdf)
Shift tool is also available in the following languages (.pdf): HR – FR – IT – LT – SL – ES
Download Shift factsheet: EN – LT – ES
Succeed is an easy-to-use tool designed to help HIV prevention projects assess their objectives and analyse their ability to meet them with sound, high quality activities.
It allows project personnel and, if required, representatives from the target group and other important stakeholders to jointly review the work and improve it during project implementation. Although relatively simple, Succeed is based on scientific research about success factors in the field of health promotion. It has been specifically adapted for use in HIV prevention. It can be used to review existing interventions or to review a plan for a new one.
Download the Succeed tool (.pdf) (interactive pdf); the interactive tool is a PDF that you fill in with your information. Please download the tool before opening it and entering any information. To fully access the document’s interactive features you need to upgrade to the latest version of Adobe Reader.
The Succeed tool is also available in the following languages (.pdf): DE – GR – IT – HR – LT– SK
PQD is an integrated set of tools designed to help improve work practices. It relies heavily on the local knowledge of stakeholders and helps them use it, reflect on it and extend it. PQD includes a selection of participatory and evidence-based methods and processes that are tailored, feasible and useful for HIV prevention projects.
The methods and processes originate in different fields of health and social science theory and practice, and the toolkit has been used in general health promotion as well as in HIV prevention.
The PQD tool is available in the following languages: (EN) (IT) (DE) (LT) (HR)
Download a description of the PDQ tool in the following languages: (ES) (DE) (EN)
QIP is a comprehensive quality improvement tool for health promotion and prevention projects. It uses external experts to assess a detailed documentation form filled in by the project. The questionnaire can also be used as a guide for the self-assessment of projects, programs or strategies.
QIP has been quality checked, tested in practice and adapted to the context of HIV prevention. It was developed in close partnership between the Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA) and the University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) in Germany.
“Doing the right things right!”
The conference was the concluding event of Quality Action, the EU co-funded ‘Joint Action on Improving Quality in HIV Prevention’, involving 45 partner organisations from 26 Member States, and took place in Berlin, Germany on January 26 – 27th 2016.
The event provided the opportunity to take stock of the latest developments in improving quality in HIV prevention, and brought together representatives from governmental and non-governmental organisations to share their experiences in applying practical quality improvement tools. Acting Direction John Ryan from the European Commission, HIV prevention leader Prof Kevin Fenton from Public Health England and quality improvement expert Prof Michael Wright from the Catholic University of Applied Sciences Berlin provided key input to the discussion.
Further highlights of the conference were the launch of a new Charter for Quality in HIV Prevention as well as the presentation of the project’s Policy Kit with policy statements and strategic actions to support quality improvement in HIV prevention at the national and regional levels. Furthermore, the conference provided opportunities to learn more about the concepts and tools of Quality Action.
The audience comprised more than 100 participants from across Europe, reflecting one of Quality Action’s main achievements, the creation of a community of quality improvement practitioners. Strong links across 26 EU Member States were formed during the project’s three year period. The commitment to continuing to improve quality and to coordinated action and collaboration that was evident at the event is key for a sustainable impact and further development.
The conference agenda is available here.
Read the conference report here.
Download the speakers’ presentations:
Session 1: Quality Action products and results in the context of HIV prevention in Europe
Prof Kevin Fenton – Keynote address: HIV prevention – what have we achieved? What does the future hold?
Matthias Wentzlaff-Eggebert – From ‘what works and why’ to ‘doing the right things right’ – history, approach and project overview.
Session 2: Evaluation results and recommendations for HIV policy and programme development
Christiana Nöstlinger, Bea Vuylsteke – Successes and challenges of integrating quality improvement in HIV prevention: results of Quality Action’s mixed method evaluation.
John Ryan – The HIV/AIDS policy framework of the European Commission and the links to Quality Action.
Ursula von Rüden – Quality principles and criteria for HIV prevention – evidence and experience.
Session 3: Quality Improvement in HIV prevention practice
Viveca Urwitz – Tools for action: from theory and experience to practical quality instruments.
Deirdre Seery – The Quality Action approach to capacity building.
Carolin Vierneisel – Make it fit – results, enablers and barriers of applying quality improvement tools in practice.
Session 4: enablers and tools for sustainable quality improvement
Prof Michael Wright – Keynote address: Quality in HIV prevention – making participation a reality.
Cristina Chiotan – The Quality Action website and future communication channels.
Session 5: strategies for sustainability and outlook
Vasileia Konte – National implementation of Quality Action in Greece – steps towards sustainability.
Daniel Simões – The road ahead… challenges and opportunities in sustaining Quality Improvement in HIV prevention.
Christine Winkelmann – Future perspectives for Quality Improvement activities.
For more information:
Are you involved in an HIV prevention initiative and interested in applying a quality improvement/quality assurance tool to one of your projects or programs?
If so, get involved in Quality Action and link with the Quality Action partner in your country.