Background

The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) is a five-year project that aims to support the development of government-led health learning platforms that draw on implementation research to help inform efforts to build enduring and resilient health systems. It is designed to the use existing health data, implementation research methods, and research training to improve the quality and effectiveness of health services and health
service delivery.

Objectives

• Improve the capacity of implementers to conduct implementation research to inform and improve health information system and health program policy and performance;
• Improve the relevance and effectiveness of critical data use solutions and accelerate their introduction, adoption, and scale-up;
• Document and explore the pathway that leads from increased utilization of quality data to improved services delivery and health outcomes.

Key Activities

1. Improved capacity for implementation research among health managers and researchers:

The DDCF grant supports this effort by focusing funding on building the capacity of local universities to conduct and support implementation research activities through the capacity building and mentorship partnership project (CBMP). The DDCF grant will support this effort by focusing funding on research and learning opportunities for Doctoral and Master’s level students enrolled in select universities. Specifically, through a grant process, DDCF funds will provide these students with funded opportunities to conduct formative and implementation research studies around Health Information system (HIS).

2. Increased evidence from implementation science research to scale up data use interventions:

A robust, continuous and collaborative process will be put in place to document program implementation and measure the impact of the DDCF grant at the end of the five years. We will continuously conduct embedded research, program monitoring, and process evaluation activities. In order to ensure rigor in documenting processes and learning around data use interventions, Master’s level students from local universities will be attached to each Center of Excellence. These students will be tasked with conducting implementation research around data use interventions created in the innovation labs.

3. Conducting Mentorship and supportive supervision:

Mentorship is a system of practical training and consultation that fosters ongoing professional development to yield sustainable high-quality outcomes. It is a process whereby an experienced, highly regarded, empathetic person (the Mentor), guides another individual (the mentee) in the development and re-examination of their own ideas, learning, and personal and professional development. The Mentor, who often but not necessarily works in the same organization or fields as the mentee, achieves this by listening and talking in confidence to the mentee. Mentoring and supportive supervision are complementary activities that are necessary to build the health service delivery systems.