2003, Save the Children
Partnership Defined Quality is a methodology to improve the quality and accessibility of services with community involvement in defining, implementing, and monitoring the quality improvement process. Partnership Defined Quality (PDQ) links quality assessment and improvement with community mobilization.
This manual offers tools that can be used by project managers, health service managers, or facilitating agencies. It can also be used by health workers or community advocates, who would like to work to make a difference in the quality of health services available in their area. The tools in this manual can help the users to plan programs that will mobilize both health workers, and communities to work toward better service quality and availability.
This manual was designed to be a resource and guide for exploring and planning quality improvement activities through partnership activities involving health providers and the community members that they are meant to serve. The chapters reflect the different phases of the PDQ methodology. The goals for each phase are listed in the beginning of the chapter.
The tools and exercises are not meant as a prescription for what must be done but instead should be used as suggestions. We encourage you to be creative and use tools with which you are familiar or have found to work well in a particular culture. There are also many excellent resources in the areas of team building and problem solving that you may wish to use. When appropriate, other references are listed for further exploration.
