A young boy and girl in yellow school polo shirts wash their hands using a Tippy Tap device.

Kore Sante

With the generous support of the American people, through USAID, Health Equity International is working hand in hand with the people of Haiti to improve the state of health care.

In 2022 HEI began leading the Improved Health Service Delivery (IHSD) program: a five-year, USAID-funded project to improve access to high-quality health care in southern Haiti. The project is called Kore Sante (“Supporting Health”) in Haiti.

Seven nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and 31 public and private healthcare facilities are implementing Kore Sante in Haiti’s Grande Anse, Nippes, Sud, and Sud-Est departments. All participants work under the guidance of the Haitian Ministry of Health centrally through the Director General’s Office and the Technical Directorates, and regionally through the Heads of the Departmental Directorates in the Southern region. 

The goal of the project is to support these NGOs and their healthcare facilities in providing high-quality primary care services. The program also emphasizes community health work to improve service delivery, provide community-level health education, and strengthen linkages between community- and facility-based care.

Through Kore Sante, HEI is furthering its mission of ensuring that all people, regardless of their ability to pay, have access to dignified and compassionate health care.

A map of of Haiti's southern peninsula with all of the participating healthcare facilities in the IHSD/Kore Sante program marked.

Kore Sante supports 31 healthcare facilities and surrounding communities.

Objectives

Kore Sante aims to improve service delivery and quality of care across three objectives:

  • Sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health and nutrition (SRMNCAH-N), including:
    • Providing reproductive support to women of reproductive age and families with children under 5 years of age
    • Increasing health literacy in communities
    • Improving adherence to prenatal appointments
    • Improving access to hospital-based deliveries
    • Increasing demand for family planning
    • Improve infection prevention and control through water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) activities
  • HIV/AIDS, including:
    • Providing quality testing services
    • Immediately linking patients to care and antiretroviral therapy
    • Improving adherence to treatment plans
  • Resiliency, community empowerment, data for results, and resource optimization, including:
    • Strengthening the Haitian health system and building local capacity to respond to disasters, shocks, and epidemics
    • Improve healthcare waste management
    • Improve infection prevention and control protocols
    • Provide training on data collection, monitoring, and analysis to empower data-driven decisionmaking
Group photo of two dozen Haitian women and men in business casual attire, smiling in a yellow-painted room.

Participants in a symposium on health equity, organized for World Health Day 2024.

Pregnant Haitian women gathered in a covered outdoor space with bougainvillea blooming in the background. One is having her blood pressure taken.

Kore Sante runs dozens of pregnancy clubs, increasing women’s access to prenatal care.

Training

Training is a core component of Kore Sante.

Healthcare providers from doctors to nurses’ aides participate in regular trainings focused on improving service delivery and quality of care. At every level, Kore Sante emphasizes the importance of respectful, patient-centered care, equitable access to care, patient agency in treatment decisions, and collaboration with colleagues to improve patient outcomes. 

Two women community health workers lead a training in rural Haiti. The two women stand in front of the room. Their students sit on long benches in front of them in a small room.

Training is a core component of Kore Sante.

Through specialized training, community health workers are learning to leverage the trust they’ve built with the people they serve to promote health-seeking behaviors. Using strategies that include modeling positive behaviors at community health events and individual counseling as well as group education sessions, community health workers can play an outsize role in improving their patients’ understanding of when and how to access health services. 

Finally, Kore Sante is using extensive training and coaching to improve data collection, monitoring, and evaluation systems and overall health governance, including mechanisms for oversight and accountability. These activities support stronger health systems that are more responsive to local needs.