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Volunteer Clinical Educator in Maternal Health - Kenya

Volunteer Clinical Educator in Maternal Health

Summary: Jacaranda Health’s mission is to change the way that maternity care is provided in Africa. We are combining innovations to create a self-sustaining and scalable chain of clinics that provide reproductive health services to poor urban women. We are seeking a clinician with experience in obstetrics to help coach and mentor our team of midwives and ensure that they are delivering the highest quality patient-centered care.

Background: Our goal is to become the largest provider of affordable maternity care in the region, and a laboratory for innovation in maternal health. We are proving the concept in Nairobi with two clinics, and if we are successful we will aim to scale up across East Africa over the next five years. To date, we have built a world-class team, developed critical partnerships and support within Kenya, sparked the interest of the global maternal health community, and received awards for our business model. We have launched our first mobile clinic and are about to go live with our fixed clinic. Our model of care has been exceptionally well-received by our customers. For more detail, please visit our website http://www.jacarandahealth.org/ or our blog, blog.jacarandahealth.org.

Jacaranda's approach is to set up a chain of midwife led clinics that offer friendly, affordable, high-quality service based on the best available maternal health innovations. Our model is a combination of two tightly-integrated services to ensure that women receive the full continuum of maternal health care: (a) mobile clinics that create a direct link with our patients, boost demand for services and healthy outcomes through antenatal care and birth preparedness; and (b) fixed clinics near low income areas where women can go for respectful obstetric care, safe delivery, family planning, and postnatal care. Besides being a service provider, Jacaranda is also a laboratory for some of the most exciting innovations in maternal and child health. We are incorporating innovative practices from around the world — in mobile health, evidence based medicine, electronic medical records, and financial and marketing innovations — and measuring their impact on quality of care and health behaviors.

Position: Our first maternity opened in August 2012 and we are seeking to partner with an experienced health professional well versed in obstetrics. We have hired a team of competent, enthusiastic Kenyan nurses, who come to us with a variety of experience. They have been through a rigorous screening and hiring process, and we are confident that we have put together an exceptional team. Based on our philosophy of standardizing work and implementing protocols and policies to support the high quality services that we will be providing, we are seeking a clinician to assist in validating staff competency and performing an educational gap analysis, working together with the Clinical Operations Director in formulating an initial and ongoing education and training plan. This will require the individual to work alongside each nurse to evaluate key skills through the triage, admission, and discharge process. Assessments will include the evaluation of their technical (hands-on) and analytical (critical thinking) skills and their practical application of theory into practice. This role will have no supervisory or performance management functions: It will be solely educational and supportive in nurturing the growth of our health professionals.

3-6 months based in Nairobi, with preference given to candidates who can commit for longer. The position is a volunteer fellowship, but Jacaranda can offer a stipend for expenses and housing.

We see this opportunity equally benefitting you as a stepping stone in your career as a physician, educator and researcher. We would like for this position to commence as soon as possible, and last for at least three months. Please feel free to contact me at fmuigai@jacarandahealth.org if you have additional questions.

Faith Muigai, RN, MSN, CNRN

Director, Clinical Operations

Jacaranda Health, Kenya

www.jacarandahealth.org

Working to improve maternal and newborn health in East Africa

This page was last modified 1/2/2013 2:30:42 PM