Tropical medicine & international health : TM & IH
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Trop. Med. Int. Health · Jul 2013
Task shifting an inpatient triage, assessment and treatment programme improves the quality of care for hospitalised Malawian children.
We aimed to improve paediatric inpatient surveillance at a busy referral hospital in Malawi with two new programmes: (i) the provision of vital sign equipment and implementation of an inpatient triage programme (ITAT) that includes a simplified paediatric severity-of-illness score, and (ii) task shifting ITAT to a new cadre of healthcare workers called 'vital sign assistants' (VSAs). ⋯ ITAT with VSAs improved vital sign assessments and nearly doubled clinician notifications of patients needing further assessment due to high ITAT scores, while equipment alone made no difference. Task shifting ITAT to VSAs may improve outcomes in paediatric hospitals in the developing world.
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Trop. Med. Int. Health · Jul 2013
Development of a severity of illness scoring system (inpatient triage, assessment and treatment) for resource-constrained hospitals in developing countries.
To develop a new paediatric illness severity score, called inpatient triage, assessment and treatment (ITAT), for resource-limited settings to identify hospitalised patients at highest risk of death and facilitate urgent clinical re-evaluation. ⋯ We developed an inpatient triage tool (ITAT) appropriate for resource-constrained hospitals that identifies high-risk children after hospital admission. Further research is needed to study how best to operationalise ITAT in developing countries.