Always build on success. If research leads to a successful outcome, scale up. As new innovations are implemented throughout the system, challenges will emerge that throw things off track. Embedded research will help get things back on the right road.
While CHPS was created to respond to pressing needs related to reproductive and child health, as we look to the future it is likely that new areas will be integrated into the service that is provided.
Embedded research is key to helping the CHPS programme innovate and evolve. It helps the programme learn and adapt when interventions don’t work as planned, or when new health concerns arise in the community. And with each adaptation the process of embedded research continues, ensuring that implementation and the policy that guides it is informed by up-to-the-minute evidence grounded in the knowledge of communities and health system staff.
Professor Kweku believes that the embedded research in CHPS has helped policy-makers and health staff better understand the needs of the community and where they can work better and smarter,
During the first evaluation we realised that people over 30 don’t really value CHPS. The men for instance, for them it is not their business at all because it is only mothers with children under five and those who are pregnant who are benefiting. When we started this training, I told them that this would help them expand the scope of CHPS. We are now involving everyone. Because if you can screen them for blood pressure, blood glucose, and refer at least they have gained something from you. These are some of the things we want them to add onto CHPS and that is why we are training them at this time on these topics.
