Welcome To iDOC Africa
Work has shown that those with severe illness or needing inpatient care do not always receive good quality care in African hospitals.
Although poor resources play a part in this, lack of knowledge and lack of simple tools to help health workers provide better care also contribute.
We would like to help improve health care in African hospitals.
How might a clinical information network be promoting implementation of recommended paediatric care practices in Kenyan hospitals?
We previously proposed a clinical network as a solution to challenges implementing recommended practices in Kenyan hospitals based on our understanding of theory and context. Here, we report how we have enacted what was proposed and use a recent typology to deconstruct the intervention into its elements and articulate how we think the network may produce change. We offer a more generalised statement of our theory of change in a context–mechanism–outcome configuration. We hope this will complement a planned independent evaluation of ‘how things work’, will help others interpret results of change reported more formally in the future and encourage others to consider further examination of networks as means to scale up improvement practices in health in lower income countries. More
Variation in and risk factors for paediatric inpatient all-cause mortality in a low income setting: data from an emerging clinical information network
All-cause mortality is highly variable across hospitals and associated with clinical risk factors identified in disease specific guidelines. A panel of these clinical features may provide a basic common data framework as part of improved health information systems to support evaluations of quality and outcomes of care at scale and inform health system strengthening efforts. More