Strengthening Financial Sustainability through Integration of Voluntary Counseling and Testing Services with Other Reproductive Health Services

The Child in Need Institute (CINI) operated an HIV/AIDS Voluntary Confidential Counseling and Testing (VCCT) center and a Reproductive Health (RH) clinic at separate locations. Concerns about lack of service coordination as well as cost and revenue considerations led CINI to integrate the two services. CINI conducted an operations research (OR) study to examine the impact of integration on utilization and revenues.

The objective of this study was to examine whether integration of services would yield an increase in clients served and improve the financial position of the program. A monitoring system was established to capture utilization, cost, and revenue data. The utilization analysis focused on determining if more clients received services, and measuring the proportion of clients who received both RH and VCCT services. The financial analysis focused on determining whether the provision of services to a client (separately or together) added more to program costs or to program revenues.