PSP Jordan: Business Training for Doctors Enhances Service Delivery

The Abt Associates-led PSP Jordan project has assessed the outcomes of a business training course that was offered to doctors affiliated with the project, who deliver women’s health services. In 2007, the project introduced the business training course to assist doctors to improve the financial health of their private practices and help them invest in improving the quality and scale of their clinical service provision. Specifically, the training was designed to orient doctors to financial management and reporting, help them to understand the financial health of their medical practice and explore strategies for growth – especially through access to financing. Banyan Global, a subcontractor on the project, conducted the needs assessment, adapted the curriculum from the USAID-funded Banking on Health project and identified a local training organization, Partners Jordan, to roll-out the training. Abt Associates provided direct oversight and management support to the process.

Over the course of one year, 78 doctors from Amman, Irbid and Zarqa attended the four-day training course. Partners Jordan administered a base-line survey during the course and conducted site-visits six weeks after the sessions (to 51 doctors) to assess the impact on the scale of service provision and changes in management practices. Following are highlights from the assessment:

• There was an expansion in service provision following the training. Approximately 34 percent of doctors reported seeing more clients after the training (with increases ranging between 50 and 230 clients); thirty-two percent reported an increase in family planning clients.
• There was improved financial management following the training. The number of doctors who started to maintain financial records increased by 70 percent (from 23 to 39 doctors), with 17 more doctors (48%) using the records for business planning purposes rather than only for submitting to the authorities.
• There was an increase in revenue following the training. Of the doctors who reported their monthly revenue (31 doctors), 42 percent reported an increase after the training. Fifty-two percent did not report a change and 6 percent experienced a decrease.
• Doctors used the training to make important changes in their businesses. Fifty-seven percent of doctors’ instituted changes in their pricing strategy and 41 percent made changes to their marketing strategies or service mix.
• The training had a more limited impact on whether doctors accessed financial services. Doctors who had accessed financial services increased by nearly 10 percent from 23 to 25. Of the 26 doctors who had not accessed financing, 73 percent said that they were not satisfied with the terms of the loans available through formal financial institutions.