Rates of maternal and neonatal mortality are high in Uganda. In much of the country, high-impact best practices in maternal and newborn health and family planning have yet to be implemented, and quality of care is poor.To address these issues, the Evidence to Action for Strengthened Family Planning and Reproductive Health Services for Women and Girls (E2A) Project partnered with the STRIDES for Family Health (STRIDES) project, and Uganda’s Ministry of Health (MOH) to introduce and implement an Improvement Collaborative (IC), a systematic approach for introducing and scaling up best practices. The IC was designed around an integrated package of maternal, neonatal health, and family planning best practices delivered at hospitals and high-tier health facilities (facilities III and IV) in
Uganda. 

This technical brief describes how Evidence to Action (E2A) worked with the USAID-funded STRIDES project to introduce an Improvement Collaborative in 10 districts of Uganda. The Improvement Collaborative is a structured quality improvement approach that organizes a number of teams or health facilities to work together for a period of 18 to 24 months to achieve significant improvement in a specific area of care. This Improvement Collaborative focused on best practices in family planning and maternal and neonatal health. The best practices were implemented in two phases: first, in 10 facilities, and then in an additional 36 facilities.