Clinton Health Access Initiative - Technical Lead

Clinton Health Access Initiative - Technical Lead

Overview :

The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries, while strengthening the capabilities of governments and the private sector in those countries to create and sustain high-quality health systems that can succeed without our assistance. For more information, please visit: http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org

CHAI, in partnership with its India affiliate William J Clinton Foundation (WJCF), works in close partnership with and under the guidance of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) at the Central and States' levels on an array of high priority initiatives aimed at improving health outcomes. Currently CHAI/WJCF works across projects to expand access to quality care and treatment for HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis-C, tuberculosis, cancer, and immunization. Additionally, CHAI is also supporting the Government of Madhya Pradesh (MP) on large-scale programs to arrest childhood and maternal mortality due to malnutrition, anaemia, diarrhoea, and pneumonia, and helping increase access to quality Family Planning services.

About the project :

In India, the lack of infrastructure at the community level coupled with the non availability of qualified radiologists to interpret X-ray's leads to a significant delay in screening and diagnosis of Tuberculosis (TB). Chest X-ray (CXR) is a rapid imaging tool that allows for easy identification of lung abnormalities. CXR is an essential tool for early detection of tuberculosis (TB), and therefore fundamental instrumental in the fight to eliminate TB. Currently, only 11% of public health facilities in the country have X-ray machines available at Community Health Centres (CHCs) or district hospitals consequentially delaying the diagnosis of TB or adding to the out-of-pocket expenditure required by patients if done outside the public health facilities.

To address these delays at the community level, WJCF, with support from The Global Fund, aims to address the gap by introducing and operationalising hand-held X-ray machines integrated with Computer-Aided Detection (CAD) software. Deployment of a high-sensitive screening tool (X-ray) along with high throughput interpretation (CAD) and subsequent linkage to CBNAAT for diagnostics would reduce delays in diagnostics and pre-treatment loss to follow-up (LTFU). In addition, would be of significant use of active case finding in various settings. The project will be implemented in urban and rural districts in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Uttarakhand, and Haryana

The project aims to generate local evidence and demonstrate various use cases for portable X-ray + CAD to improve TB case finding and reduce diagnostic delays. With an objective that the local evidence would lead to greater buy-in at the state level, facilitate the effective transition of project activities to the government and support future scale-up using domestic budgets.

Role Overview :

CHAI seeks a highly motivated, entrepreneurial individual with outstanding strategic thinking, problem-solving ability, and communication skills to support the national project in the 8 states. The Technical Lead must be able to function independently, be comfortable working and coordinating the operations of cross-functional teams, be flexible, and have a strong commitment to excellence. Reporting to the Project Director and working closely with other strategic partners, the Technical Lead is expected to lead the grant implementation in the 8 States of India.

We place great value on relevant personal qualities: resourcefulness, teamwork, interpersonal skills, responsibility, tenacity, energy, and work ethic. Overall, Technical Lead would be expected to support in - Stakeholder Engagement, designing, coordinating, reviewing and documentation of various interventions that have been undertaken under the project.

Responsibilities :

- Lead the project at the national level through strong program management, designing and ensuring implementation of programmatic strategies for achievement of program objectives while closely working the implementing partners (Sub Recipients) at the State level

- Design the implementation roadmap, supportive supervision plan, activity monitoring plan and implementation strategy for the project

- Engage with the National Tuberculosis Elimination (NTEP) to facilitate necessary support for availability of drugs, diagnostics and necessary manpower support required for the project interventions

- Track project progress regularly and feed into the various reports for the purpose of internal consumption as well as government departments

- Represent CHAI and the project at the National level to ensure the required programmatic and policy support are facilitated

- Engage and Coordinate with key programmatic, technical, and government stakeholders (MoHFW, NTSU, STSU, NTEP National and State level) for seamless project execution

- Manage and coordinate with suppliers, government agencies and procurement teams to ensure timely procurement and placement of X-ray machines

- Review project plans and support state teams with engagement of key stakeholders to fast track rollout of project activities and services in the respective district and sub district level

- Identify the implementation roadblocks and support state leads to address them

- Support in the development of the operational guidelines and M&E plans

- Develop sustainability plans for the use and adoption of the machines operationally and advise on the transition of technical partner relationships to governments post-deployment.

- Design the template for community engagement for the State Leads and District leads involving NTEP staff, Local community leaders, VHSND team, ASHA, People's representative at the local level

- Provide the need- gap requirement from a project implementation standpoint to Sr Communications Lead, Sr monitoring and evaluation Analyst , Admin & Procurement Officers at the central team

- Liaise with M&E team to collate data on operational challenges and benefits of roll-out.

- Conduct periodic programmatic reviews and provide guidance to teams and partners on course correction

- Work with team to ensure up-to-date documentation is in place to support roll-out and maintenance of the product.

- Disseminate project learnings with key stakeholders and advocate for scalability and sustainability of the intervention through domestic budgets

Desired skills and experience :

- Master's degree in relevant field such health informatics, public Health, or management

- At least seven - ten years of relevant working experience, as a technical lead, product manager, business analyst or in a similar role to deliver business requirements for technology initiatives

- Experience in managing new product and service launch and/or drove adoption of an existing product

- Experience working and communicating with government officials and/or multilateral organizations, with strengths in communicating technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders

- Prior experience in managing large field teams in Development sector /sales/marketing function will be an asset

- Strong understanding of interfacing with government bodies/NGOs/diverse stakeholders is preferable

- Exceptional communication skills with people of varied professional and cultural backgrounds

- Demonstrated problem solving skills

- Ability to work well both independently and as part of a multidisciplinary team

- Willing to undertakes extensively travel to states of operations within the country