Stability of healthcare quality measures for maternal and child services: Analysis of the continuous service provision assessment of health facilities in Senegal, 2012-2018.

objectiveHigh-quality healthcare is essential to ensuring maternal and newborn survival. Efficient measurement requires knowing how long measures of quality provide consistent insight for intended uses.

methodsWe used a repeated health facility assessment in Senegal to calculate structural and process quality of antenatal care (ANC), delivery and child health services in facilities assessed 2 years apart. We tested agreement of quality measures within facilities and regions. We estimated how much input-adjusted and process quality-adjusted coverage measures changed for each service when calculated using quality measurements from the same facilities measured 2 years apart.

resultsOver 6 waves of continuous surveys, 628 paired assessments were completed. Changes at the facility level were substantial and often positive, but inconsistent. Structural quality measures were moderately correlated (0.40-0.69) within facilities over time, more so in hospitals; correlation was <0.20 for process measures based on direct observation of ANC and child visits. Most measures were more strongly correlated once averaged to regions; process quality of child services was not (-0.32). Median relative difference in national-adjusted coverage estimates was 6.0%; differences in subnational estimates were largest for process quality of child services (19.6%).

conclusionContinuous measures of structural quality demonstrated consistency at regional levels and in higher level facilities over 2 years; results for process measures were mixed. Direct observation of child visits provided inconsistent measures over time. For other measures, linking population data with health facility assessments from up to 2 years prior is likely to introduce modest measurement error in adjusted coverage estimates.