Global Health
The Pelumbra Global Health team works to support health systems and health development partners as they tackle the complex issues on which service delivery depends, on the ground every day in every facility. The best technical solutions depend on a complex interplay of information management systems, clinical protocols, team dynamics, competing organisational priorities, funding and policy support - all of which ultimately require productive working relationships. The Pelumbra Global Health Team includes people with front-line experience and multi-disciplinary perspectives.
• Strengthening health service delivery in both developed and developing countries through an expert team in Participatory Action Research, Organization Development, Quality Improvement and Global Health. The team has worked with: NHS UK, MoHCC Zimbabwe, MoH Eswatini; MoH Namibia; and team members have wider experience in the Mekong region, South Asia, South America and across Africa.
• Specific infectious disease program technical support including malaria control and elimination, HIV and sexually transmitted infections through world renowned academics and public health specialists in the team
• Evidence generation and dissemination through provision of technical assistance with study design, analysis, manuscript writing and writing retreats
We have a long-standing interest in how good leadership contributes to the continuity of care, quality-improvement and innovation in typically stressed health systems. (Actually the term 'system' probably tells only half the story: health care is as much a 'life world' in which people generously patch together solutions. The 'system' is often a fortunate and hard-won appearance!). This focus on leadership includes organising and delivering accredited programmes partnership with appropriate universities and other professional bodies.
Amongst our current engagements in health are:
Pelumbra Ltd is proud to support the Malaria Elimination Initiative (MEI) at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in its mission to eradicate malaria. Led by Professor Roly Gosling, our partnership will focus on providing technical expertise and strategic guidance for key initiatives aimed at combating antimalarial drug resistance and disseminating critical research findings. This includes assisting with the planning and execution of a regional antimalarial drug resistance meeting in Southern Africa, as well as contributing to the development of a supplement on the Genomics of Malaria in the E8 (GenE8) project. Additionally, we will support MEI’s efforts to update the Lancet Commission on Malaria Eradication (LCME) report and craft a global dissemination strategy for these pivotal findings.
Pelumbra’s role encompasses active participation in planning, drafting, and refining scientific manuscripts, providing feedback on editorial and peer-review processes, planning and designing meetings and contributing to dissemination efforts. These activities will occur over the project’s term, from December 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025, ensuring high-quality deliverables that align with MEI’s innovative and evidence-driven approach to ending malaria. With over two decades of expertise in operational research, advocacy, and program implementation, MEI remains at the forefront of global health solutions. Pelumbra is committed to amplifying these efforts to create lasting impact.
Deliverables and Timelines
Our collaboration includes key deliverables such as the facilitation of GenE8 project outputs, editorial contributions to the supplement on antimalarial drug resistance in southern Africa, and strategic guidance on LCME manuscript development. Each deliverable is designed to advance MEI’s goals of fostering evidence-based policy and practice. The partnership will culminate in a comprehensive global dissemination plan for LCME findings by March 2025, underscoring Pelumbra’s dedication to sharing insights that drive progress toward malaria eradication. Oversight for this collaboration will be provided by Jenny Smith, MEI Project Manager, ensuring a seamless and impactful partnership.
Post Graduate Certificate in Change Leadership
An advanced training in OD facilitation for health-service professionals, this programme enables pole who take part in service and quality improvement processes to adapt and continue the work after external interventions have reduced or ended. This certificate is delivered in the field as an integrated part of some of our projects, accredited by the University of the West of England and the Women’s University of Africa.
We are keen to collaborate with local health organisations and public well-being campaigns on the delivery of these and related modules - please get in touch if you would like to be involved.
Operational and quality improvements to malaria elimination programmes in southern Africa.
Working with staff at all levels (from village health workers through lab technicians and provincial administrators to Ministry officials) we design and support team-based work to identify, analyse and solve operational challenges to malaria elimination. Currently working mainly in Zimbabwe and Namibia with expert facilitators in those countries, we also help to run the post-graduate facilitator training certificate course described above. This project overall is directed by Amanda Chung of the Malaria Elimination Initiative of the University of Southern California, though delivered and much adapted by Precious Chitapi, Joe Murungu and their colleagues in Zimbabwe. This project draws largely on the methods and approach of the 'RoundTables' programme described elsewhere on this site.
Operational and quality improvements in HIV prevention, especially Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC)
Although focusing on service delivery, the wider issue has been how to integrate aspects of this service that have so far been delivered as a ‘vertical’ programme funded and managed as a stand-alone specialist intervention. Integrating this and similar ‘vertical’ programmes into national health services is an important but complex move affecting people at all levels of a health system. Our approach here has been taken up by the Ministry of Health and Child-Care for wider application. The initial project was managed by Amanda Chung of UCSF, and is now delivered by Precious Chitapi and Joe Murungu.
LEAD Ubuntu Global Foundation
A new Non-Profit Company established to further develop and apply these approaches. Head-quartered in South Africa and Zimbabwe, this new entity will be a focus for much of our upcoming work.
Participative evaluation of a social services project in a UK city.
People with multiple disadvantages and complex needs often face a myriad of specialist services, encountering many officials as they pass through homelessness, hospitals, police, prison and others. Combining these into a client-centred team approach has obvious advantages but is fiendishly difficulty to do on a sustained basis. Even if established, evaluating the outcomes presents many challenges because of the fragility of any progress, attributing outcomes to specific causality is impossible, and cost-oriented evaluations can only refer to counterfactuals - what might have happened if the service wasn’t here. But participative evaluation by the professionals and clients involved offers clear advantages, and our approaches - adapted from African health settings - are making valuable contributions. We would be happy to talk to others interested similar challenges.