Where We Work | Program
Pharmacy Assistant Program
In 2013, VillageReach began an initiative to train and deploy a new cadre of facility-based pharmacy staff to improve data management, decrease logistics burden on clinical staff and improve quality of care. The program ended in 2019.
Changes at the Drugstore
Originally posted on The Medium. Many health facilities across Malawi don’t have enough trained pharmacy staff to adequately manage stock and dispense medicines. These tasks often fall on health care providers, who already have many other responsibilities, namely caring for patients. In some cases,...
Getting Up To Speed: The Pharmacy Assistant Mentorship Program
Mbang’ombe 1 Health Center is in the back yard of Lilongwe International Airport. In terms of access to quality health services however, the facility might as well be far from Lilongwe. At approximately 50 km from the Lilongwe District Health Office and Central Medical...
Keeping Cool: A New Partnership with Bull City Learning
Vaccines are extremely sensitive to temperature. They must remain between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius in order to remain viable. Outside of this temperature range, vaccines become less effective at preventing diseases. Because of this, the storage and handling of vaccines need careful attention....
Waiting: Discovering and Addressing Inefficiencies in Malawi
One hundred and thirty minutes. That’s just over two hours. It’s a long time to wait to see a doctor no matter where you are in the world. Then after waiting for two hours, patients talk to a healthcare provider for less than 2 minutes –...
When Health Workers Need a Helpline
Malawi has made incredible strides over the past few years to reduce morbidity and mortality, specifically among women and children under 5 years old. Key to this success has been a focus on using community health workers, known in Malawi as Health Surveillance Assistants...
Graduated Success: When Programs Leave the Nest
Graduation season is upon us. It’s a time of reflection for those about to embark on a new phase of their lives. For many this means entering the workforce for the first time, a pivotal life moment. At VillageReach, we recently celebrated the graduation...
Your Support: Reaching More with CCPF
Donor support and new partners like Johnson & Johnson will help expand and enhance CCPF in the coming year. We are pleased to announce that Johnson & Johnson Corporate Contributions has become one of the key partners in championing Chipitala Cha Pa Foni (CCPF) as it advances towards...
The Role of Paper to Digital Data Solutions
In response to this article by Dr. Mahad Ibrahim on the role of data during the Ebola outbreak, some interesting questions were sparked among our team. The piece evoked a lot of great insights about the opportunities and challenges the piece addresses, as well as...
Pemphero’s Story – A Day in the Life of a Health Surveillance Assistant
As a Community Health Facilitator for VillageReach in Malawi, I see the impact of Community Case Management (CMM), a strategy that promotes the early care-seeking behavior, assessment, diagnosis, recognition, and appropriate treatment for childhood illnesses at the community-level. Over the last few years, CCM...
Smartphone App to Improve Health Assessments of Women and Children in Rural Villages
VillageReach, in collaboration with D-tree, is proud to announce the implementation of a new mHealth application in Malawi. What an exciting partnership! During the first week of February 2015, 25 health surveillance assistants (HSAs), nurses and other health workers in Balaka District received intensive...
Making Sense of Maternal and Child Mortality
The Role of Data Collection and One Community’s Path Toward Change While working on the Kwitanda Community Health Project (KCHP), based in the Kwitanda catchment area, Balaka District, in southern Malawi, I have seen firsthand how critical the role of data collection is to improving...
A Relief for Rural Health Workers
I am a clinician by profession, serving a population of over 30, 000 in the 25 villages that my health center serves. I am the only clinician at the health facility with a single nurse to assist covering when possible. We recently lost the...
My Journey to the Pharmacy Assistants Training Program
By LOVENESS KASIYAMPHANJE Pharmacy Assistants Training Program- Class of 2015 ...
The Best Remedy
By CLIFFORD KANONO VillageReach Pharmacy Assistants Program Student– Class of 2015 My name is Clifford Kanono. I am enrolled in VillageReach’s Pharmacy Assistant Training Programme. Previously, I worked as a Health Surveillance Assistant in the rural communities of Nkhata Bay District in the Northern...
How a Phone Call Saved a Life
A frontline perspective of the CCPF “Health Center by Phone” Program When I trained as a midwife, I had no idea that I would be helping deliver babies over the phone. Technology has come a long way, especially in the district of Balaka in...Background
Having a skilled health care workforce is a critical component of strong health systems. VillageReach, in collaboration with partners introduced The Pharmacy Assistant Training Program in Malawi in 2013. This program was a two-year certificate-level training program focused on improving medicines management and pharmaceutical practice in over 650 health facilities in Malawi. The program included:
- Two five-month practicums in between classroom-based learning
- Training on safely dispensing medicines and advising patients
- Training on inventory management to ensure continuous access to health products
Resources
Building a Pipeline of Supply Chain Professionals through Education: Malawi
Impact Assessment of Pharmacy Assistant Graduates in Malawi
Poster: Impact Assessment of Pharmacy Assistant Graduates
Pharmacy Assistant Training Program Overview
Examination of Patient Flow in a Rural Health Center in Malawi
Pharmacy Assistant Program Year Three Report
Fostering the use of quasi-experimental designs for evaluating public health interventions: insights from an mHealth project in Malawi
Introducing an enhanced cadre of pharmacy assistants to improve dispensing, management, and availability of medicines
ODK Scan in Malawi Final Field Test Report
Decreasing the Data Burden at the Last Mile to Improve Data Management and Use for Stronger Pharmaceutical Systems
Introducing an enhanced cadre of pharmacy assistants to improve dispensing, management, and availability of medicines at the health centre level in Malawi
Barr Foundation From Local to Global
SMS versus voice messaging to deliver MNCH communication in rural Malawi: assessment of delivery success and user experience
SMS versus voice messaging to deliver MNCH communication in rural Malawi: assessment of delivery success and user experience
Pharmacy & Supply Chain Strengthening Program
This program serves a great need in the community, and it has helped me, providing education and job opportunities. I love my job.”
– AARON, PHARMACY ASSISTANT, LUMBADZI HEALTH CENTER, MALAWI
Program Impact
Partners
Government
- The Malawi Ministry of Health and Population
Technical Partners
- University of Washington Global Medicines Program
- Malawi College of Health and Sciences
Donors
- USAID | DELIVER PROJECT
- Barr Foundation
- Vitol Foundation
- USAID’s Global Health Supply Chain– Procurement and Supply Management (GHSC-PSM) project
Related Global Impact
See the latest updates from our work to improve access to quality healthcare in the world’s most underserved communities.