Collaborative efforts to strengthen healthcare for Nepal’s mothers and newborns

[Kathmandu, Nepal, 1 October 2024]

In a significant move to improve maternal and neonatal healthcare (MNH) in Nepal’s most underserved areas, the Karnali Academy of Health Sciences (KAHS) and One Heart Worldwide (OHW) formalized their collaboration by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on September 27, 2024. 

The signing took place in the USA during Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s official visit, underscoring the importance of this partnership. With this agreement, both organizations aim to address critical gaps in healthcare for mothers and newborns, marking a transformative step in improving access and outcomes in Nepal’s remote regions.

The MOU was signed by Dr. Mangal Rawal, Vice-Chancellor of KAHS, and Kirsten Meisinger MD MHCDS, Board Chair of OHW. 

This partnership aims to strengthen local initiatives at the provincial and municipality levels. Their focus will be in Karnali and Far-Western Provinces, which are home to some of the most underserved communities. 

Prime Minister Oli, who witnessed the signing, highlighted the government’s commitment to ending the issue of brain drain and encouraged medical professionals to return to Nepal or continue serving their country from abroad. 

Key components of the agreement include:

• Fellowship Programs: Designed to train healthcare professionals from rural districts to better serve their communities, where access to trained professionals is extremely limited.

• Joint Research Initiatives: KAHS and OHW will collaborate on research projects aimed at addressing healthcare issues unique to rural Nepal, such as maternal and neonatal mortality, and the challenges posed by the lack of infrastructure and difficult geographical conditions.

• Knowledge and Skill Exchanges: The partnership will foster exchange programs that benefit healthcare workers, promoting the sharing of skills, expertise, and best practices to bridge the healthcare gap in these regions.

• Capacity Building and Sustainability: Both institutions will work together to raise funds for healthcare infrastructure and long-term programs, ensuring sustained impact in districts, where health services are often limited to basic care.

Karnali Academy of Health Sciences (KAHS) is a health institution dedicated to improving healthcare in Nepal’s remote regions. It provides essential services and education across nine underdeveloped districts. KAHS addresses significant challenges in access and quality of care, leading to meaningful improvements in health outcomes throughout the Karnali and Far-Western provinces.

One Heart Worldwide (OHW) is an international INGO committed to enhancing maternal and neonatal health in Nepal’s underserved areas. Through its robust Network of Safety, OHW supports healthcare providers to ensure families receive timely and quality care, ultimately empowering local communities and strengthening healthcare systems across Nepal.

This collaboration between KAHS and OHW is expected to help Government of Nepal make a difference in the healthcare systems of Karnali and Far-Western provinces by offering long-term solutions to the region’s most pressing health challenges. The MoU will remain in effect for five years, with an annual review to ensure it continues to meet its objectives.

For further information, please contact:
Karnali Academy of Health Sciences (KAHS)
Dr. Mangal Rawal, Vice Chancellor
Email: vc@kahs.edu.np/drmangalkahs@gmail.com  

One Heart Worldwide (OHW)
Mr. Surya Bhatta, Executive Director
Email: surya@oneheartworldwide.org

Noora Health Expands into Nepal & Announces Partnership with One Heart Worldwide

Photo by Laxmi Kaul
A Female Community Health Volunteer providing a check-up for an infant and his mother near their home in rural Nepal

[Kathmandu, Nepal, 13 September 2024] - Noora Health and One Heart Worldwide (OHW) are pleased to announce their new partnership to introduce and implement the Care Companion Program (CCP) in select hospitals across Nepal. The CCP currently trains nearly 15,000 caregivers throughout India, Bangladesh, and Indonesia every day. This expansion into Nepal is a significant milestone as the model scales rapidly throughout the globe. Focusing on maternal and newborn health, this collaboration aims to enhance the quality of healthcare delivery and access through culturally relevant caregiver training and education, significantly improving patient outcomes and support for caregivers.

One Heart Worldwide has over a decade of experience working with the Nepali government and other organizations in areas such as emergency relief and improving healthcare at the community level. This experience will be combined with Noora Health’s expertise in caregiver training and education, a model that has reached more than 10 million caregivers since 2014. 

Beginning in Q4 2024, the pilot program will launch in three hospitals: Madhesh Institute of Health and Sciences (MIHS) in Janakpur, Paropakar Maternity and Women’s Hospital (PMWH) in Kathmandu, and Provincial Hospital in Surkhet. The goal is to deliver culturally sensitive and medically accurate training and support tailored to the unique needs of patients and caregivers across Nepal. With Noora Health anchoring the program design process, One Heart Worldwide will lead implementation and monitoring efforts. 

Partnership Initiatives

1. Needs-Finding Report Synthesis: Noora Health and OHW will jointly analyze the needs-finding outputs, a key component of Noora Health’s human-centered design process when entering a new geography, to create content and teaching materials that address Nepal's unique healthcare requirements.

2. Content and Digital Platform Development: The teams will explore and create a digital platform to provide ongoing support for patients and caregiver, disseminating health behavior change content, ensuring accessibility and ease of use for healthcare professionals and caregivers.

3. Training of Trainers (ToT): OHW will coordinate and implement ToT workshops with essential support from Noora Health. These three-day workshops, to be conducted at three selected hospitals, will prepare healthcare staff to conduct regular CCP sessions for patients and their family caregivers. The training curriculum will be meticulously developed to enable effective and empathetic communication by healthcare workers. .

4. Implementation and Monitoring: After the training, healthcare staff will begin conducting CCP sessions in their respective wards. A comprehensive CCP roster will be established to maintain the program's regularity. Progress will be measured using indicators such as the number of hospitals enrolled, nurses trained, caregiver training sessions offered, and caregivers trained.

This approach was designed for government and stakeholder ownership and implementation from the start. Optimized for implementation, adoption, and speed without compromising the quality of training, support, and education, this partnership model reduces barriers to entry while accelerating progress towards establishing family caregiving training and support as a global standard of care.  

“We’re thrilled to play a supportive role in implementing the CCP alongside the vast expertise of One Heart Worldwide,” said Dr. Shahed Alam, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Noora Health. “Together, we will hit the ground running to build an impactful program for patients and caregivers in Nepal.” 

One Heart Worldwide’s CEO, David Murphy, shared, "We are thrilled to partner with Noora Health to bring the CCP to Nepal." He added, “This collaboration aligns with our mission to improve maternal and child health outcomes by equipping caregivers with the necessary skills and knowledge. Together, we aim to create a sustainable and impactful healthcare training model."

One Heart Worldwide and Noora Health have ambitious goals: “This partnership aims to bring the best of Noora Health’s caregiver education practices from across Southeast Asia to Nepal. When you combine that with One Heart Worldwide’s local expertise, it has the potential to transform the caregiver education landscape across health facilities in Nepal over the next three to five years,” said Edith Elliott, Noora Health’s Co-Founder and Co-CEO.

For more information about Noora Health and its initiatives, please visit www.noorahealth.org.

For more information about One Heart Worldwide and its initiatives, please visit www.oneheartworldwide.org.

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About Noora Health:

Noora Health is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving health outcomes by equipping patients and family caregivers with the necessary skills to manage health conditions effectively at home. Its focus is on critical life-saving skills, chronic disease management, and postoperative care — all of which are delivered through engaging and culturally-appropriate training and content.

With the support of public health systems across India, Bangladesh, and Indonesia, Noora Health has reached more than 10 million caregivers since 2014. Its flagship training program, the Care Companion Program, has been shown to reduce post-surgical cardiac complications by 71% and newborn readmissions by 56%. In 2022, Noora Health was honored as a TED Audacious Project grantee and received the Skoll Foundation Award for Social Innovation  —a catalytic opportunity to jump-start their ambitious goal of reaching 70 million caregivers by 2027.

About One Heart Worldwide:

One Heart Worldwide (OHW) is a non-profit organization dedicated to making pregnancy and childbirth safer in remote and underserved regions of Nepal. Founded in 2004, OHW employs a comprehensive “Network of Safety” model that includes training healthcare professionals and local stakeholders, providing essential medical supplies, upgrading health facilities, and raising awareness about maternal and newborn health. Through strategic partnerships and community engagement, OHW has reached a significant milestone of impacting 1 million mothers and newborns with improved access to maternal and newborn care in Nepal.

About the Care Companion Program

At the heart of Noora Health is the Care Companion Program (CCP) — an adaptable, context-specific, and human-centered suite of educational tools and training for patients and caregivers. By partnering with hospitals and healthcare systems, the program ensures that patients and their families receive continuous support and education from the time they are admitted until they return home, improving health outcomes in the long run.

As part of this, healthcare staff in public hospitals and clinics are trained to transfer health skills to family caregivers. Then, the CCP’s mobile follow-up and support component reaches both healthcare staff and families outside of health facilities. 

Since 2014, the CCP has been adapted for several major medical conditions, including: maternal and newborn care, cardiology and cardiac surgery, oncology care, general medical and surgical care, tuberculosis, and COVID-19.

For more information, please contact:

Kelly Hagler 
Associate Director, Communications
Noora Health
kelly@noorahealth.org 

Katie Dyas
Communications Manager
One Heart Worldwide
katie@oneheartworldwide.org 

One Heart Worldwide Secures USAID ASHA Funding to Establish Seven Maternal and Newborn Health Centers of Excellence Across Nepal

A trainee practicing her MNH skills during a simulation-based training session.

[Kathmandu, Nepal, 12 January 2024] - One Heart Worldwide proudly announces a significant stride toward enhancing maternal and newborn health (MNH)  in Nepal through the generous support received from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) American Schools and Hospitals Abroad (ASHA) Initiative. This funding will empower One Heart Worldwide to spearhead the creation of seven state-of-the-art MNH Centers of Excellence across Nepal. The project, a joint effort between the United States, the Government of Nepal, and One Heart Worldwide, will support Nepal’s efforts to reach its 2030 Sustainable Development Goals for maternal and neonatal health.

The primary focus of this project will be to establish and furnish seven high-quality Centers of Excellence within existing tertiary-level hospitals in five of Nepal’s seven provinces. Each Center of Excellence will provide comprehensive training for Skilled Birth Attendants (SBAs) and other Skilled Health Personnel (SHPs) using a simulation-based teaching methodology. Leveraging USAID resources, these centers will become pivotal hubs for advancing critical MNH skills and elevating the quality of MNH services in Nepal, as well as for increasing mutual understanding between Americans and Nepalis.

In addition, One Heart Worldwide is supporting the Government of Nepal to provide technical assistance in incorporating the simulation-based methodology into Nepal’s national training curriculum for SBAs and SHPs which the Government is currently revising. The development of this curriculum will also be a focus of this USAID-funded project and is a fantastic opportunity to have a national-level impact on the quality of MNH care in Nepal.

Many MNH service providers working in rural areas of Nepal lack the specialized skills to deliver quality care, and even those who participate in the official training to become certified SBAs require follow-up or opportunities to gain new information or updated techniques. Traditional training courses in Nepal are largely theoretical in nature, without opportunities for hands-on learning, resulting in low confidence in applying skills or an inability to practice complex scenarios.

In contrast, simulation-based approaches create rich learning environments by providing MNH care providers with opportunities to practice their clinical and decision-making skills through various real-life situational experiences. Practicing in realistic scenarios builds competencies to manage emergencies and rare adverse events, directly impacting better patient outcomes. Within the USAID-funded Centers of Excellence, trainees will practice using medical manikins that simulate pregnant women and infants, as well as practice clinical techniques using real medical instruments such as stethoscopes, blood pressure cuffs, and infant warmers.

"We are thrilled to embark on this transformative journey in collaboration with USAID’s ASHA Initiative," said David Murphy, CEO at One Heart Worldwide. "This initiative aligns perfectly with our mission to bolster healthcare systems and elevate maternal and newborn care standards across Nepal."

The initiative will see active involvement from American medical professionals who will contribute through virtual webinars, disseminating best practices in simulation training and fostering a deeper understanding of American values and medical expertise.

This project is poised to deliver not only enhanced healthcare but also substantial public diplomacy benefits. Beyond the technical aspects, the project places significant emphasis on public outreach. Targeted messaging campaigns will engage both trainers and trainees at the simulation labs, highlighting the friendship between America and Nepal and promoting the shared values driving this collaboration.

The U.S. Agency for International Development administers the U.S. foreign assistance program, providing economic and humanitarian assistance in more than 80 countries worldwide.

For more information about One Heart Worldwide and its initiatives, please visit www.oneheartworldwide.org.

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About One Heart Worldwide:

One Heart Worldwide (OHW) is a non-profit organization dedicated to making pregnancy and childbirth safer in remote and underserved regions of Nepal. Founded in 2004, OHW employs a comprehensive “Network of Safety” model that includes training healthcare professionals and local stakeholders, providing essential medical supplies, upgrading health facilities, and raising awareness about maternal and newborn health. Through strategic partnerships and community engagement, OHW has reached a significant milestone of impacting 1 million mothers and newborns with improved maternal and newborn care access in Nepal.

For more information, please contact:

Katie Dyas
Communications Manager
One Heart Worldwide
katie@oneheartworldwide.org 

Transforming Lives: One Heart Worldwide Reaches 1 Million Mothers and Newborns in Nepal's Underserved Regions

Photo by Laxmi Kaul

[Kathmandu, Nepal, 15 September 2023] - In a groundbreaking achievement, One Heart Worldwide (OHW) is proud to announce a remarkable milestone of improving access to essential maternal and newborn care for 1 million mothers and newborns across Nepal. Our journey towards this success has been paved with sustainable partnerships, with the Government of Nepal playing a pivotal role both nationally and locally. This significant accomplishment reflects OHW's relentless dedication to improving the health and well-being of underserved and remote communities and underscores the organization's unwavering commitment to reducing maternal and neonatal mortality rates in the region.

Since its inception, One Heart Worldwide has been steadfast in its mission to tackle the critical issue of maternal and newborn mortality in Nepal. With a visionary approach and a collaborative spirit, the organization has implemented innovative and sustainable solutions, empowering local communities and healthcare providers to create a lasting impact on maternal and newborn health.

Through strategic partnerships with the Government of Nepal and local Nepali NGO partnerships, OHW has successfully expanded its reach across half of the districts of Nepal, extending essential services to remote and underserved areas where access to healthcare was limited. By training Skilled Birth Attendants, providing life-saving medical supplies, and raising awareness about maternal and neonatal health, OHW has played a pivotal role in saving countless lives and creating a more resilient healthcare system in Nepal.

The relentless efforts of OHW have not only led to a reduction in maternal and neonatal mortality rates but also contributed to the overall improvement of healthcare outcomes in the communities it serves. Empowered with knowledge and resources, mothers have been better equipped to make informed decisions about their health and the well-being of their newborns.

"We are ecstatic to have reached this incredible milestone of impacting 1 million mothers and newborns in Nepal," said David Murphy, CEO of One Heart Worldwide. "It is a testament to the dedication and commitment of our team, the unwavering support from our partners and donors, and the resilience of the communities we serve. Together, we have made a significant difference in the lives of countless families, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to ensuring a healthier future for mothers and newborns in Nepal."

One Heart Worldwide extends its heartfelt gratitude to all its supporters, donors, volunteers, and partners who have played a pivotal role in achieving this remarkable milestone. With this achievement, OHW reaffirms its commitment to continuing its life-saving work, further expanding its reach to one third of Nepal’s annual pregnancies by 2030, and transforming the landscape of maternal and newborn care in Nepal.

For more information about One Heart Worldwide and its initiatives, please visit www.oneheartworldwide.org.

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About One Heart Worldwide:

One Heart Worldwide (OHW) is a non-profit organization dedicated to making pregnancy and childbirth safer in across Nepal. Founded in 2004, OHW employs a comprehensive “Network of Safety” model that includes training healthcare professionals and local stakeholders, providing essential medical supplies, upgrading health facilities, and raising awareness about maternal and newborn health. Through strategic partnerships and community engagement, OHW has reached a significant milestone of impacting 1 million mothers and newborns with improved access to maternal and newborn care in Nepal.

For more information, please contact:

Katie Dyas
Communications Manager
One Heart Worldwide
katie@oneheartworldwide.org