Worldwide
Global
Pediatric Hospital Improvement Collaborative
World Health Organization (WHO) referral studies indicate that 10 to 20 percent of sick children treated with IMCI guidelines at primary level facilities will need referral to hospitals for life-saving treatment of conditions such as difficult breath, diarrhea with dehydration, high fever, and severe malnutrition. There has been limited documentation of care and support given sick children in hospitals in developing countries, but some evidence suggests widespread gaps between actual care and recently developed WHO guidelines for pediatric care at first level referral hospitals.
Recognizing that improving the quality of pediatric hospital care has not received adequate attention, QAP has initiated an international improvement collaborative to raise the quality of care for hospitalized children with serious infections and severe malnutrition through the application of evidence-based standards. The collaborative will also seek to improve recognition and management of emergency conditions in children under five years.
QAP Activities
- Assess case management of serious infections and severe malnutrition in young children including the management of emergency conditions in first referral level hospitals
- Introduce evidence-based guidelines of care for hospitalized, seriously ill young children and infants and associated interventions to improve the quality of case management and emergency care
- Assist the participating hospitals to undertake rapid quality improvement and collaborative learning to improve and sustain quality care for sick children
Partners
- World Health Organization, Child and Adolescent Health Division
- Ministry of Health of Eritrea
- Ministry of Health of Nicaragua
- Ministry of Public Health of Niger
- World Health Organization, Eritrea
- Pan American Health Organization, Nicaragua
- UNICEF, Nicaragua
Sites
- Eritrea (19 hospitals)
- Nicaragua (5 hospitals)
- Niger (14 hospitals)
- Malawi (to begin in 2004)
- Guatemala (to begin in 2004)
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Global Polio Eradication
QAP has provided technical assistance to the Polio Eradication Initiative of the World Health Organization to develop and test guidelines for the laboratory containment of infectious poliovirus. QAP also supported the development of self-assessment and interview instruments to evaluate laboratory compliance with the polio containment guidelines. The instruments and assessment process were field-tested in Hungary, Germany, Philippines, and Vietnam.