Case Study Sun Quality and Myanmar Medical Association

The Sun Quality Health franchise was launched by Population Services International (PSI/Myanmar) in 2001. It is a franchise of licensed General Practitioners (GPs) who had pre-existing clinics and served low-income populations. Since its inception, the SQH network has shown that social franchising can effectively target high-quality and affordable reproductive health services to low-income women. In 2003 and 2004, providers in the SQH network expanded beyond offering reproductive health services to include services for STIs, malaria and TB.

In 2001, the Medical Association of Myanmar MMA initiated a partnership with Sun Quality Health to further its own mission of providing quality services to low income people. The MMA is a professional association with a mission to improve the capacity and service quality of private doctors. The partnership has been mutually beneficial to MMA and the Sun Quality Franchise: it has improved the competency and efficiency of each individual doctor and the availability of high quality services to target low income clients.

In terms of its achievements, by working with pre-existing private practitioners the Sun Quality Health network has been able to reach large numbers of low-income families in a short time. As of March, 2006, the network included 689 active members located in 120 townships covering approximately 40 % of the country’s population.

Other achievements to date:
• Conducted more than 1,374,400 reproductive health consultations
• Provided more than 500,616 couple-years of protection against unwanted pregnancy
• Diagnosed and treated 24,000 cases of p. falciparum malaria
• Diagnosed and treated more than 48,000 cases of STI
• Detected, registered and began DOTS treatment for more than 9,000 cases of TB
• Demonstrated improvement in key indicators of quality of care amongst participating providers
• 70% of Sun Quality health clients classified as amongst the poorest 50% of the population

Lessons learned about the partnership
By formally partnering with the MMA, the Sun Quality Health franchise has ensured that providers adhere to high quality standards and have opportunities to upgrade their clinical and professional skills. The ability for both partners to share knowledge and best practices around clinical and institutional building has been extremely valuable.

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