Taking every opportunity to save lives: The role of modern quality improvement in enhancing maternal newborn and child health programs. A synthesis of USAID Health Care Improvement Project field experience.

This paper discusses the role modern quality improvement approaches can play in improving MNCH outcomes and describes specific applications across the continuum of MNCH care including ANC essential obstetric and newborn care infant and child care and post-partum family planning. Drawing on examples from the work of the USAID Health Care Improvement Project (HCI) in Africa Asia and Latin America the paper shows how quality gaps in the services addressing the antenatal intra partum postnatal neonatal and child periods can be closed through modern QI approaches.