Making Every Baby Count Initiative (MEBCI) 2.0 Update 
Since beginning the Making Every Baby Count Initiative (MEBCI) 2.0 in July 2020, Kybele set out to reduce institutional perinatal mortality (stillbirth and newborn death) in four high-volume referral hospitals in Ghana.  
 
To achieve this goal, Kybele has been enlisted by the Children's Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) to:
  • Share our expertise to build the capacity of staff in advanced newborn clinical care
  • Improve the operational processes for referral within and between hospitals
  • Establish facility-level data dashboards to track outcomes and serve as an accountability resource for results
 
We’ve partnered with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to provide regular technical support and leadership for critical neonatal care capacity-building components of the initiative. 
 
AAP experts have been serving as technical advisors to establish and enhance newborn clinical care and train health personnel in target health facilities. 
 
Together, Kybele and AAP technical experts have led hands-on training and mentorship in our Clinical Care and Operational Processes Bundle—including Quality Improvement, Leadership, Labor and Delivery, Theatre and Recovery, Advanced Neonatal Resuscitation, Postnatal Care, and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit modules.
MEBCI 2.0 Feeding and Nutrition module Training Greater Accra Regional Hospital
MEBCI 2.0 Labor & Delivery Module Training Greater Accra Regional Hospital
MEBCI 2.0 NICU Stakeholder Workshop, Accra Jab 20-21, 2022
Team Member Spotlight -
William Akpanya
In honor of our two-year MEBCI 2.0 anniversary, we want to highlight our Ghanaian Quality Improvement Officer, William Akpanya. 

William is passionate about maternal and child health issues. He is a Master of Public Health (MPH) candidate at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) with a Bachelor of Science Degree (BSc) in Nutrition and Food Science from the University of Ghana.
"Since joining Kybele, I have been involved in capacity building of staff in quality improvement and implementation science methodology to enable them to take up projects aimed at achieving the objectives of the MEBCI 2.0 project and other projects in the future. I also coach several quality improvement teams to implement plan-do-study-act (PDSA) cycles, create project charters, and develop data management systems for their various projects with the ultimate aim of improving maternal and neonatal care and outcomes in line with the objectives of MEBCI 2.0."

We're so glad to have you on board, William. Thank you for the impact you've made since joining the Kybele team!
Kybele's Latest Published Research
Not only does Kybele support global childbirth health, we also add to the collective voice and body of research that supports what we do. 
 
Our latest manuscript “Use of WhatsApp messaging technology to strengthen obstetric referrals in the Greater Accra Region, Ghana: findings from a feasibility study” was accepted by PLOS (The Public Library of Science) and was published on April 28, 2022. 
 
This study was undertaken at the Greater Accra Regional Hospital (GARH), a major obstetric referral hospital in Ghana, as part of an ongoing collaboration between the Ghana Health Service and Kybele.
 
Kybele aimed to examine and characterize the delay that occurs within the health system and how it impacts maternal and newborn healthcare.
 
We worked to optimize communication among referral facilities using WhatsApp messaging technology, which is widely available and popular in Ghana. Our goal was to examine the referral process and determine if the use of WhatsApp improved timeliness, which could inform researchers and policymakers who are interested in reducing delays and improving healthcare systems in low-resource settings.
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