In-Process Quality Assurance Guidelines

Quality assurance can be defined as referring to all those planned and systematic actions necessary to provide confidence that all goods and services will satisfy customer expectations. Quality assurance provides the basis for sustaining continuous quality improvement in all processes, goods and services.

At the simplest level, quality improvement provides the fundamental learning cycle that drives ongoing system improvement. This learning cycle consists of 4 basic elements, notably Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) with the cycle continuing by returning to the Plan phase for further improvement opportunities that have been identified. Quality assurance acts as a wedge to sustain the achievements of the PDCA cycle, preventing performance from sliding backwards.

As partners in Global Fund programs, it is critical that the PR and relevant SRs jointly undertake quality assurance activities to monitor the processes that link them, and measure variations in the processes as it is those variations that create poor performance cost. In turn, variation in those processes provides clues as to opportunities for improvement. Joint quality assurance requires sharing of data and information. To build the necessary trust to facilitate it is essential that each party respects the other’s role in the Global Fund program and the constraints faced by the other party so that unrealistic expectations are avoided.

The topics for quality assurance study by the parties might be identified in a joint planning meeting through study and discussion of what is currently know of the processes covered by the Recipients’ Global Fund activities – for instance, reporting by the SR to the PR. Through combining the information available from the reports from several SRs, it is likely that factors that may contribute to differences in performance between SRs can be identified, studied and lessons taken as to what makes for higher quality and more reliable reporting.