Deputy Chief Field Health Program

Provides strategic and operational advice, technical expertise and recommendations to the Chief Field Health Programme and Field management on all matters related to the development and implementation of the Hospitalization service policy to ensure effective and well-informed decision making; leads functions related to assessment, planning, coordination and monitoring of hospitalization health activities in Lebanon Field;

Manages the implementation of UNRWA’s Lebanon hospitalization services policy in an efficient manner to ensure access to quality care for patients by:

Conducting frequent  visits to the field to ensure the accurate implementation of the policy; visits contracted hospitals, UNRWA Health centers and other health facilities to monitor the quality and the timeliness of services provided, which is addressed by  conducting clinical audits on inpatients’ referrals, diagnosis and management at the contracted hospitals;  more specifically, this includes examining the appropriateness of the referrals in accordance with the admission criteria (emergency admissions, health center referrals, or self-admission after working hours of UNRWA clinics);

Conducting periodic meetings with the community to ensure that  the applied hospitalization strategy is clearly communicated to the target population and ensures the dissemination of information on any updates;

Conducting regular (at minimum monthly)  meetings with the  Area Hospitalization Medical Officers (AHMOs)  and/or Area Health Officers (AHOs) as well as periodic meetings  with partners in provision of hospitalization services to follow up on all related issues;

Provides technical support and advice to all AHMOs and facilitate their work by developing working strategies and internal control methods, standardization of processes and procedures,   preparing supportive annexes for each contracted hospital/Laboratory /radiology center that includes the agreed cost of all provided services for easy reference.

Planning and directing , in coordination with AHMOs/AHOs, training to health centers staff including Medical Officers  and clerks  on eligibility criteria, hospitalization policy, use of hospitalization data base and reporting;

Setting the annual plan, in coordination with AHOs/AHMOs, to organize the work at area level by identifying the roles and responsibilities at health center and area levels;  manages the hospitalization team in the Field Office and provides coaching, mentoring and training to achieve the set objectives;

Manages the hospitalization contracts and oversees the hospitalization budget and monitors the financial hospitalization expenditures in close coordination with the relevant support departments (finance , PLD ), and clinical trends on a Field level to identify and rectify areas of unsatisfactory performance and coordinates corrective actions with the area teams to capitalize on potential performance improvement opportunities; follows up with  AHMOs and/or AHOs on admission and compliance issues regularly;

In coordination with Chief Field Health Programme as well as other relevant internal stakeholders such as (Finance and PLD), develops the annual plan and revises the hospitalization support policy in line with the needs of Palestine Refugees as well as UNRWA’s overall hospitalization policy; this includes, but not limited to,  defining eligibility criteria, scope of provided services, negotiating prices, finalized contracts;

Leads in coordination with  AHMOs and/or AHOs on:

Receiving and investigating complaints from UNRWA-referred patients and solving their problems with hospitals; reviewing and providing advice on exceptions to policies, regulations and rules; advising and counselling staff and beneficiaries in respect of rights and responsibilities;

Planning ,organizing and conducting patient satisfaction interviews and surveys and reporting of findings, with recommendations for improvement, to Chief Field Health Programme;

Submitting monthly hospitalization reports to follow up on the numbers of hospitalization admissions and estimated expenditures with analytical reports to compare trends of admissions and expenditures through careful assessment and review of historical performance, precedents and lessons learnt;     

Ensures the implementation of department policies, procedures, and processes across Lebanon Field and monitors adherence; recommends improvements to departmental policy where necessary; liaises and maintains contacts with the respective NGOs, community leaders, governmental and municipal organizations and other bodies to enhance cross-functional responses to health needs; represents his/her supervisor and/or the Agency, as required, and provides technical guidance in relevant meetings with internal and external stakeholders and follows up on action points; in close collaboration with Health Department at HQA, contributes substantively to the development of relevant Agency-wide and field-specific strategies, policies, procedures and instructions as well as provision of guidance and advice to the other fields in relation to planning, implementation, monitoring and assessment of hospitalization services;

Builds and works closely with IT department on continuous development of hospitalization data base and knowledge management systems to meet the needs for data entry, reports generation and sharing of information;  is responsible to set/revise SOPs for MHF and monitor eligibility, reimbursement values  and expenditures of  MHF and cancer cases and submit a monthly report to CFHP on progress; 

Performs other duties as may be assigned by the supervisor(s).