Jordan

Initiatives’ staff supporting the Jordan Health Systems Strengthening Project:

Safa Halaseh, B.S., Health Promotion Expert

Ms. Halaseh has been with Initiatives since 2004, providing short- and long-term consultancies on a variety of projects in Jordan, most recently serving as Project Manager for the Jordan Human Resources Project. As the Program Manager for the Health Systems Strengthening Project, Ms. Halaseh has reviewed and reported on the assessment tools for the MOH’s health promotion program.  She will continue to participate in the development of the health promotion and community health program, including assisting with development of the community-level primary health care training plan and contributing to the development of community guidelines.

Ms. Halaseh began her career as a dietician and has moved into the policy realm, focusing on youth and health promotion issues, and has published several papers and articles.

Osama Samawi, M.D., Senior Task Manager for Quality

Dr. Osama is the Senior Task Manager for Quality with the Jordan HSS Project.  In this role, he is responsible for planning, coordinating, and facilitating the implementation of HSS efforts to institutionalize quality and performance improvement systems to sustain a continuous quality improvement process at all levels of the Jordanian health care system.

As a board-certified physician in community and health management since 1980, Dr. Osama has experience in senior hospital management and has extensive experience as an advisor to WHO and other international agencies on quality assurance and hospital administration. He has worked in the Jordan Ministry of Health and as a lecturer in health management at the Jordan Medical Council. In addition to being fluent in Arabic and English, Dr. Osama has professional working knowledge of Russian.

Arwa Shahin, MBA, BSc, Task Manager for Field Support

As Task Manager for Field Support, Ms. Shahin is a member of the HSS Service Delivery/Quality Improvement team. In this role, she is responsible for implementing and monitoring HSS efforts that aim at improving the management and supervision capacity at the Health Directorate Level. Ms. Shahin also works to strengthen Ministry of Health systems and processes to improve referral from Primary Health Centers to MoH Hospitals. Additionally, she tracks and supports HSS quality and management scale-up within the Directorates.

Ms. Shahin is a Canadian/Jordanian citizen with over 15 years of experience in management in the pharmaceuticals industry, including positions in Canada, Jordan, and Nigeria. Her specialization is in developing management systems with a particular focus on quality systems and regulatory compliance management, data management and analysis, organizational analysis and performance improvement systems. Ms. Shahin is fluent in both Arabic and English.