Feedback from Ghana

I was doing a learning module through Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) for my new job as a physician here in the states and they refer to a quality improvement at Margret Marquart Hospital in Ghana. It’s so amazing that an initiative in Kpando is setting an international example!

“The staff at Margret Marquart Catholic Hospital in Kpando, Ghana — one of the initial hospitals participating in a nationwide improvement initiative in Ghana called Project Fives Alive! — were dismayed when they learned the mortality rate for children under five was 33 per 1,000 admissions. When they investigated, they found most deaths were due to malaria, anemia, and neonatal disease (asphyxia and prematurity) and were primarily attributed to two causes: delays in patients seeking care and delays in clinicians providing appropriate care upon arrival at the hospital.

With the hospital leadership’s full support, a team brainstormed how they could redesign processes to address these barriers to providing care in a timely fashion. Key changes included:

Community education on the importance of seeking care early

Triage and fast-tracking: identifying acutely ill patients and providing prompt treatment

Blood bank readiness: blood donation campaigns amongst the youth and requiring all elective surgery cases to bring two blood donors

As of November 2014, Project Fives Alive! has achieved the following results in 134 hospitals across Ghana:

31% reduction in under-five mortality

37% reduction in post-neonatal infant mortality 35% reduction in under-five malaria case fatality”