Project to support improved quality of pediatric care in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan

Quality of care has recently been recognized as a neglected issue and the existence of a quality gap is the most likely explanation for slow progress towards MDG 4.

Efforts to improve the quality of pediatric care in the district hospitals have proven successful where introduction of national pediatric standards of care and institutionalization of triage and emergency pediatric care procedures resulted in a reduction in case fatality.

In an effort to scale up and document best practices, the Russian Federation has provided funding to be administered by WHO to support improved quality of pediatric care project in four selected countries in Central Asia and Africa. Within the framework of this Project, WHO in collaboration with Scientific Centre for Child Health of the Russian Academy of Medical Science and other technical experts will provide technical assistance to Angola, Ethiopia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to strengthen their national health systems' capacity to improve the quality of pediatric care in the first-level referral hospitals.

The main goal of the project is to reduce childhood mortality through strengthening national health systems capacity in improving the quality of pediatric care for common childhood illnesses in the first-level referral hospitals.

Objectives of the project:

• To improve the quality of pediatric care in at least 10 selected first-level referral hospitals in these 4 countries
• To support scaling up of the experience nationally
• To introduce the concept of pediatric care standards in local health professional training institutions and
• To update and develop relevant international guidelines and tools on the based on the experience gained through the project implementation.

Expected outcomes

By the end of the project, it is expected that countries would have identified and improved the quality of pediatric care in selected hospitals and achieved the following key outcomes in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan:

• Conducted a situation analysis and hospital assessments in at least 10 hospitals (in each country).
• Reviewed, updated and widely disseminated to clinicians national standard treatment guidelines for hospital care for children.
• Oriented or trained at least 200 clinicians in improved quality of paediatric care.
• Established at least 2- 4 medical institutions as centres of excellence in improvement of the quality of paediatric care.
• Documented best practices and used the data collected to contribute to the global report on quality of care of children.
• Provided evidence of improvement in the quality of paediatric care or reduction in case fatality rates in the implementing hospitals.
• Guidelines/tools for quality improvement developed/updated.