Can a system intervention employing team-based case review help improve quality and safety of paediatric hospital care in Kenya?

Many more children die in hospitals in Kenya often from treatable illnesses, compared with richer countries. Preventing deaths in very sick children requires health workers to act effectively in a team to initiate care rapidly and sustaining good care over time. When teams do not or cannot act effectively, mistakes can be made.

I aim to develop an approach in Kenya that helps healthcare teams reflect on events surrounding the death of a child in hospital and identify what needs to be changed. We will test the effect of the approach by comparing improvements in care in hospitals that use this approach with those that do not. We will develop a model that allows the insights found from reviewing deaths to be shared with teams, local and national managers and experts in child health so that care can be improved.

We will use the findings to understand the major problems in providing care to sick children and how they can be overcome. Our work aims to enable health systems to provide continuous, safe care in countries such as Kenya.