IHI’s work in developing countries aims to broadly spread efficient and effective models of health care with the goal of reducing suffering and saving thousands of lives. The IHI Developing Countries team uses modern improvement methods to design and aggressively scale up high-quality interventions by simultaneously operating within local resource constraints and working to secure urgently needed supplies. Through close collaboration with local partners, IHI aims to develop local capacity to lead change and support improvement in the quality of care to those in need.

Using well-tested quality improvement methods, the IHI Developing Countries team focuses on improving clinical health outcomes through systems improvements. In South Africa, the team focuses on the rapid expansion of HIV/ AIDS treatment for children and adults, while efforts in Malawi focus on the significant reduction of maternal and neonatal mortality. Most recently, the team has begun to design an implementation plan to target morbidity and mortality in children under the age of five in Ghana.

• In South Africa, the IHI team assists Department of Health clinics and hospitals to rapidly build capacity to detect and treat adults and children with HIV in 5 provinces. Each District or sub-District project aims, within 18 months, to provide HAART to 80% of those who need it and decrease perinatal transmission to <10 percent.

Learn more about these activities in South Africa

• In collaboration with local partners, IHI aims to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality by 30 percent over three years in three districts in Malawi.

Learn more about the work in Malawi

• Fives Alive!, the Developing Countries team's newest project, aims to reduce morbidity and mortality in children under five. IHI has partnered with the National Catholic Health Service and the Ghana School of Public Health to test a sequential approach to improving systems of care.

Learn more about the work in Ghana

Through the development of learning networks (e.g., collaborative improvement projects) to spread successful innovations, the Developing Countries team, in partnership with local health facilities, seeks to spread innovation and improve chronic disease management in pursuit of its aims.

These projects focus first on redesigning how care is actually delivered, building lean and efficient models of treatment for a variety of settings (urban, suburban, and rural) and then offering methods to broadly and rapidly spread those models across a province, country or region.

The IHI Developing Countries team gives special attention to understanding the process of patient care, and to optimizing the roles of all patients and health workers (including clinicians, administrators, and volunteers). The team also focuses on developing models of care that utilize all levels of the health care system (tertiary, secondary, and primary), developing interdependent relationships between facilities and fostering ongoing collaboration and learning between them.

Contact us: developingcountries@ihi.org