Giving Compass' Take:

• James Nardella outlines design principles for community health worker models that are undisputed pillars of the field. 

• How can funders use these principles to design, evaluate, and alter community health worker programs? How can philanthropists better share learnings? 

• Learn how technology and philanthropy can support community health workers. 

A collective process of reflection has resulted in a set of 8 “design principles that drive programmatic quality and are debated or not commonly found in programs across the globe.”

  1. Accredited: Community health workers must prove their competency before carrying out there work.
  2. Accessible: Point of care user fees should be avoided when possible.
  3. Proactive: For active disease surveillance, community health workers go door-to-door looking for sick patients and providing training on how to identify danger signs and quickly contact a community health worker.
  4. Continuously Trained: Continuing medical education is not only available to but required of community health workers.
  5. Supported by a Dedicated Supervisor: Community health workers benefit from regular assessment of patient experience and one-on-one coaching.
  6. Paid: Community health workers are compensated competitively.
  7. Part of a Strong Health System: Community health worker deployment is accompanied by investments to increase the capacity, accessibility, and quality of the primary care facilities.
  8. Part of Data Feedback Loops: Community health workers report all data to public-sector monitoring and evaluation systems which improves programs and community health worker performance.

Read the full article on the community health worker model by James Nardella at Skoll Foundation.