Effect of enhancing audit and feedback on uptake of childhood pneumonia treatment policy in hospitals that are part of a clinical network: a cluster randomized trial

Exploring the content and delivery of feedback facilitation co-interventions: a systematic review

BACKGROUND

Policymakers and researchers recommend supporting the capabilities of feedback recipients to increase the quality of care. There are different ways to support capabilities. We aimed to describe the content and delivery of feedback facilitation interventions delivered alongside audit and feedback within randomised controlled trials.

METHODS

We included papers describing feedback facilitation identified by the latest Cochrane review of audit and feedback. The piloted extraction proforma was based upon a framework to describe intervention content, with additional prompts relating to the identification of influences, selection of improvement actions and consideration of priorities and implications. We describe the content and delivery graphically, statistically and narratively.

RESULTS

We reviewed 146 papers describing 104 feedback facilitation interventions. Across included studies, feedback facilitation contained 26 different implementation strategies. There was a median of three implementation strategies per intervention and evidence that the number of strategies per intervention is increasing. Theory was used in 35 trials, although the precise role of theory was poorly described. Ten studies provided a logic model and six of these described their mechanisms of action. Both the exploration of influences and the selection of improvement actions were described in 46 of the feedback facilitation interventions; we describe who undertook this tailoring work. Exploring dose, there was large variation in duration (15-1800 min), frequency (1 to 42 times) and number of recipients per site (1 to 135). There were important gaps in reporting, but some evidence that reporting is improving over time.

CONCLUSIONS

Heterogeneity in the design of feedback facilitation needs to be considered when assessing the intervention's effectiveness. We describe explicit feedback facilitation choices for future intervention developers based upon choices made to date. We found the Expert Recommendations for Implementing Change to be valuable when describing intervention components, with the potential for some minor clarifications in terms and for greater specificity by intervention providers. Reporting demonstrated extensive gaps which hinder both replication and learning. Feedback facilitation providers are recommended to close reporting gaps that hinder replication. Future work should seek to address the 'opportunity' for improvement activity, defined as factors that lie outside the individual that make care or improvement behaviour possible.

REVIEW REGISTRATION

The study protocol was published at: https://www.protocols.io/private/4DA5DE33B68E11ED9EF70A58A9FEAC02 .

Bacterial co-infections, secondary infections and antimicrobial use among hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the sixth wave in Pakistan: findings and implications

INTRODUCTION

Previous studies in Pakistan have shown considerable over prescribing of antibiotics in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 despite very low prevalence of bacterial infections. Irrational use of antibiotics will worsen antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

METHODS

Retrospective analysis of medical records of patients in the COVID-19 wards of three tertiary care hospitals to assess antibiotic use during the sixth COVID-19 wave.

RESULTS

A total of 284 patients were included, most were male (66.9%), aged 30-50 years (50.7%) with diabetes mellitus the most common comorbidity. The most common symptoms at presentation were cough (47.9%) and arthralgia-myalgia (41.5%). Around 3% were asymptomatic, 34.9% had mild, 30.3% moderate, and 23.6% had severe disease, with 8.1% critical. Chest X-ray abnormalities were seen in 43.3% of patients and 37% had elevated white cell counts, with 35.2% having elevated C-reactive protein levels. Around 91% COVID-19 patients were prescribed antibiotics during their hospital stay, with only a few with proven bacterial co-infections or secondary bacterial infections. Most antibiotics were from the 'Watch' category (90.8%) followed by the 'Reserve' category (4.8%), similar to previous COVID-19 waves.

CONCLUSION

There continued to be excessive antibiotics use among hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Pakistan. Urgent measures are needed to address inappropriate prescribing including greater prescribing of Access antibiotics where pertinent.

A realist synthesis of multicentre comparative audit implementation: exploring what works and in which healthcare contexts

BACKGROUND

Multicentre comparative clinical audits have the potential to improve patient care, allow benchmarking and inform resource allocation. However, implementing effective and sustainable large-scale audit can be difficult within busy and resource-constrained contemporary healthcare settings. There are little data on what facilitates the successful implementation of multicentre audits. As healthcare environments are complex sociocultural organisational environments, implementing multicentre audits within them is likely to be highly context dependent.

OBJECTIVE

We aimed to examine factors that were influential in the implementation process of multicentre comparative audits within healthcare contexts-what worked, why, how and for whom?

METHODS

A realist review was conducted in accordance with the Realist and Meta-narrative Evidence Syntheses: Evolving Standards reporting standards. A preliminary programme theory informed two systematic literature searches of peer-reviewed and grey literature. The main context-mechanism-outcome (CMO) configurations underlying the implementation processes of multicentre audits were identified and formed a final programme theory.

RESULTS

69 original articles were included in the realist synthesis. Four discrete CMO configurations were deduced from this synthesis, which together made up the final programme theory. These were: (1) generating trustworthy data; (2) encouraging audit participation; (3) ensuring audit sustainability; and (4) facilitating audit cycle completion.

CONCLUSIONS

This study elucidated contexts, mechanisms and outcomes influential to the implementation processes of multicentre or national comparative audits in healthcare. The relevance of these contextual factors and generative mechanisms were supported by established theories of behaviour and findings from previous empirical research. These findings highlight the importance of balancing reliability with pragmatism within complex adaptive systems, generating and protecting human capital, ensuring fair and credible leadership and prioritising change facilitation.

To adopt or adapt an existing neonatal core outcome set in Kenya: a study protocol

BACKGROUND

Development and use of core outcome set(s) (COS) in research can reduce research wastage by ensuring that a minimum set of outcomes are always reported on. Neonatal morbidity and mortality are a big burden in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Research is continuously being undertaken to reduce this burden. Currently, there is no COS for neonatal research in LMICs but there exists one for neonatal research in high-income countries (HICs).

OBJECTIVES

To determine outcomes that are useful for neonatal care in Kenya to inform whether an existing COS should be adopted or adapted. To assess the feasibility of a routine data collection system to collect data of the agreed-on COS.

METHODS

A review of existing literature on neonatal research in LMICs followed by a qualitative study of key stakeholders in neonatal care. To explore whether to adapt or adopt, in two hospitals, two focus group discussions with 6-8 parents/caregivers will be undertaken (one each in two hospitals). Key informant interviews will also be conducted with 6 health care providers in each of the hospitals. At the policy-making level, we will conduct 10 key informant interviews. Qualitative data will be analyzed thematically. A consensus meeting will be undertaken with key stakeholders, who will be presented with an overview of the COS developed for HICs, key findings from the literature, and the qualitative study to determine context-appropriate COS. The agreed-on outcomes will be counterchecked against the case records in the two hospitals. The feasibility of collecting the outcomes on a routine electronic research database, the Clinical Information Network that collects standardized data at admission and discharge, will be explored. The congruence (or not) of the outcomes will be documented and be used to enrich the discussion and provide a snapshot of the feasibility of the health information system to collect routine data on the COS.

CONCLUSIONS

A COS for use in neonatal care in Kenya will help enhance outcome measurements and reporting not just in research but also in routine practice. This will enhance the comparability of interventions in trials and routine settings leading to reduced research wastage and likely improved quality of care. Additionally, the methodology used for this work can be adopted in other settings as a means of adopting or adapting an existing COS.

Identifying behaviour change techniques in 287 randomized controlled trials of audit and feedback interventions targeting practice change among healthcare professionals

BACKGROUND

Audit and feedback (A&F) is among the most widely used implementation strategies, providing healthcare professionals with summaries of their practice performance to prompt behaviour change and optimize care. Wide variability in effectiveness of A&F has spurred efforts to explore why some A&F interventions are more effective than others. Unpacking the variability of the content of A&F interventions in terms of their component behaviours change techniques (BCTs) may help advance our understanding of how A&F works best. This study aimed to systematically specify BCTs in A&F interventions targeting healthcare professional practice change.

METHODS

We conducted a directed content analysis of intervention descriptions in 287 randomized trials included in an ongoing Cochrane systematic review update of A&F interventions (searched up to June 2020). Three trained researchers identified and categorized BCTs in all trial arms (treatment & control/comparator) using the 93-item BCT Taxonomy version 1. The original BCT definitions and examples in the taxonomy were adapted to include A&F-specific decision rules and examples. Two additional BCTs ('Education (unspecified)' and 'Feedback (unspecified)') were added, such that 95 BCTs were considered for coding.

RESULTS

In total, 47/95 BCTs (49%) were identified across 360 treatment arms at least once (median = 5.0, IQR = 2.3, range = 129 per arm). The most common BCTs were 'Feedback on behaviour' (present 89% of the time; e.g. feedback on drug prescribing), 'Instruction on how to perform the behaviour' (71%; e.g. issuing a clinical guideline), 'Social comparison' (52%; e.g. feedback on performance of peers), 'Credible source' (41%; e.g. endorsements from respected professional body), and 'Education (unspecified)' (31%; e.g. giving a lecture to staff). A total of 130/287 (45%) control/comparator arms contained at least one BCT (median = 2.0, IQR = 3.0, range = 0-15 per arm), of which the most common were identical to those identified in treatment arms.

CONCLUSIONS

A&F interventions to improve healthcare professional practice include a moderate range of BCTs, focusing predominantly on providing behavioural feedback, sharing guidelines, peer comparison data, education, and leveraging credible sources. We encourage the use of our A&F-specific list of BCTs to improve knowledge of what is being delivered in A&F interventions. Our study provides a basis for exploring which BCTs are associated with intervention effectiveness.

TRIAL REGISTRATIONS

N/A.

Point Prevalence Survey of Antimicrobial Use during the COVID-19 Pandemic among Different Hospitals in Pakistan: Findings and Implications

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly influenced antimicrobial use in hospitals, raising concerns regarding increased antimicrobial resistance (AMR) through their overuse. The objective of this study was to assess patterns of antimicrobial prescribing during the current COVID-19 pandemic among hospitals in Pakistan, including the prevalence of COVID-19. A point prevalence survey (PPS) was performed among 11 different hospitals from November 2020 to January 2021. The study included all hospitalized patients receiving an antibiotic on the day of the PPS. The Global-PPS web-based application was used for data entry and analysis. Out of 1024 hospitalized patients, 662 (64.64%) received antimicrobials. The top three most common indications for antimicrobial use were pneumonia (13.3%), central nervous system infections (10.4%) and gastrointestinal indications (10.4%). Ceftriaxone (26.6%), metronidazole (9.7%) and vancomycin (7.9%) were the top three most commonly prescribed antimicrobials among surveyed patients, with the majority of antibiotics administered empirically (97.9%). Most antimicrobials for surgical prophylaxis were given for more than one day, which is a concern. Overall, a high percentage of antimicrobial use, including broad-spectrums, was seen among the different hospitals in Pakistan during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Multifaceted interventions are needed to enhance rational antimicrobial prescribing including limiting their prescribing post-operatively for surgical prophylaxis.

Ongoing Efforts to Improve Antimicrobial Utilization in Hospitals among African Countries and Implications for the Future

There are serious concerns with rising antimicrobial resistance (AMR) across countries increasing morbidity, mortality and costs. These concerns have resulted in a plethora of initiatives globally and nationally including national action plans (NAPs) to reduce AMR. Africa is no exception, especially with the highest rates of AMR globally. Key activities in NAPs include gaining a greater understanding of current antimicrobial utilization patterns through point prevalence surveys (PPS) and subsequently instigating antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs). Consequently, there is a need to comprehensively document current utilization patterns among hospitals across Africa coupled with ASP studies. In total, 33 PPS studies ranging from single up to 18 hospitals were documented from a narrative review with typically over 50% of in-patients prescribed antimicrobials, up to 97.6% in Nigeria. The penicillins, ceftriaxone and metronidazole, were the most prescribed antibiotics. Appreciable extended prescribing of antibiotics up to 6 days or more post-operatively was seen across Africa to prevent surgical site infections. At least 19 ASPs have been instigated across Africa in recent years to improve future prescribing utilizing a range of prescribing indicators. The various findings resulted in a range of suggested activities that key stakeholders, including governments and healthcare professionals, should undertake in the short, medium and long term to improve future antimicrobial prescribing and reduce AMR across Africa.

Impact of Antimicrobial Stewardship Interventions to Improve Antibiotic Prescribing for Hospital Inpatients in Africa: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) interventions to improve antibiotic use are being implemented in Africa, but their impact is not fully known.

AIM

To estimate the effectiveness of interventions to improve antibiotic prescribing for hospital inpatients.

METHODS

Systematically searched for studies from PubMed, Embase, African Journals online and Google scholar from January 2010 to July 2022. Studies were included if they reported the impact of AMS interventions on outcomes of interest for hospital inpatients in Africa. Risk of bias was evaluated using the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organization of Care guidelines and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute tool. Findings were summarized in tables and meta-analyses were performed using random-effects models.

FINDINGS

Twenty-eight studies were included, 89% being uncontrolled before and after studies. Most interventions employed were multifaceted and found to be effective, evidenced by increased compliance, reduction in antibiotic utilization and cost, and slight reduction or no difference in mortality and length of hospital stay (LOS). Meta-analysis generated a relative risk of 0.82 (95% CI: 0.70∼0.97) for mortality, and a standard mean difference of -0.30 (95% CI: -0.41∼-0.19) for LOS. Generally, a decrease in resistance to most microorganisms was observed. Despite an increase in the number of AMS studies conducted in Africa, the studies lack in most quality design features for AMS studies.

CONCLUSION

Antimicrobial stewardship interventions are likely to be effective, however efforts are still required to align the study design with the quality design features required for validity and to inform practice.

Evaluation of an audit and feedback intervention to reduce gentamicin prescription errors in newborn treatment (ReGENT) in neonatal inpatient care in Kenya: a controlled interrupted time series study protocol

BACKGROUND

Medication errors are likely common in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In neonatal hospital care where the population with severe illness has a high mortality rate, around 14.9% of drug prescriptions have errors in LMICs settings. However, there is scant research on interventions to improve medication safety to mitigate such errors. Our objective is to improve routine neonatal care particularly focusing on effective prescribing practices with the aim of achieving reduced gentamicin medication errors.

METHODS

We propose to conduct an audit and feedback (A&F) study over 12 months in 20 hospitals with 12 months of baseline data. The medical and nursing leaders on their newborn units had been organised into a network that facilitates evaluating intervention approaches for improving quality of neonatal care in these hospitals and are receiving basic feedback generated from the baseline data. In this study, the network will (1) be expanded to include all hospital pharmacists, (2) include a pharmacist-only professional WhatsApp discussion group for discussing prescription practices, and (3) support all hospitals to facilitate pharmacist-led continuous medical education seminars on prescription practices at hospital level, i.e. default intervention package. A subset of these hospitals (n = 10) will additionally (1) have an additional hospital-specific WhatsApp group for the pharmacists to discuss local performance with their local clinical team, (2) receive detailed A&F prescription error reports delivered through mobile-based dashboard, and (3) receive a PDF infographic summarising prescribing performance circulated to the clinicians through the hospital-specific WhatsApp group, i.e. an extended package. Using interrupted time series analysis modelling changes in prescribing errors over time, coupled with process fidelity evaluation, and WhatsApp sentiment analysis, we will evaluate the success with which the A&F interventions are delivered, received, and acted upon to reduce prescribing error while exploring the extended package's success/failure relative to the default intervention package.

DISCUSSION

If effective, these theory-informed A&F strategies that carefully consider the challenges of LMICs settings will support the improvement of medication prescribing practices with the insights gained adapted for other clinical behavioural targets of a similar nature.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

PACTR, PACTR202203869312307 . Registered 17th March 2022.

Pairwise joint modeling of clustered and high-dimensional outcomes with covariate missingness in pediatric pneumonia care

Multiple outcomes reflecting different aspects of routine care are a common phenomenon in health care research. A common approach of handling such outcomes is multiple univariate analyses, an approach which does not allow for answering research questions pertaining to joint inference. In this study, we sought to study associations among nine pediatric pneumonia care outcomes spanning assessment, diagnosis and treatment domains of care, while circumventing the computational challenge posed by their clustered and high-dimensional nature and incompletely recorded covariates. We analyzed data from a cluster randomized trial conducted in 12 Kenyan hospitals. There were varying degrees of missingness in the covariates of interest, and these were multiply imputed using latent normal joint modeling. We used the pairwise joint modeling strategy to fit a correlated random effects joint model for the nine outcomes. This entailed fitting 36 bivariate generalized linear mixed models and deriving inference for the joint model using pseudo-likelihood theory. We also analyzed the nine outcomes separately before and after multiple imputation. We observed joint effects of patient-, clinician- and hospital-level factors on pneumonia care indicators before and after multiple imputation of missing covariates. In both pairwise joint modeling and separate univariate analysis methods, enhanced audit and feedback improved documentation and adherence to recommended clinical guidelines over time in six and five pneumonia care indicators, respectively. Additionally, multiple imputation improved precision of parameter estimates compared to complete case analysis. The strength and direction of association among pneumonia outcomes varied within and across the three domains of pneumonia care.

Determinants of improvement trends in health workers' compliance with outpatient malaria case-management guidelines at health facilities with available "test and treat" commodities in Kenya

BACKGROUND

Health workers' compliance with outpatient malaria case-management guidelines has been improving in Africa. This study examined the factors associated with the improvements.

METHODS

Data from 11 national, cross-sectional health facility surveys undertaken from 2010-2016 were analysed. Association between 31 determinants and improvement trends in five outpatient compliance outcomes were examined using interactions between each determinant and time in multilevel logistic regression models and reported as an adjusted odds ratio of annual trends (T-aOR).

RESULTS

Among 9,173 febrile patients seen at 1,208 health facilities and by 1,538 health workers, a higher annual improvement trend in composite "test and treat" performance was associated with malaria endemicity-lake endemic (T-aOR = 1.67 annually; p<0.001) and highland epidemic (T-aOR = 1.35; p<0.001) zones compared to low-risk zone; with facilities stocking rapid diagnostic tests only (T-aOR = 1.49; p<0.001) compared to microscopy only services; with faith-based/non-governmental facilities compared to government-owned (T-aOR = 1.15; p = 0.036); with a daily caseload of >25 febrile patients (T-aOR = 1.46; p = 0.003); and with under-five children compared to older patients (T-aOR = 1.07; p = 0.013). Other factors associated with the improvement trends in the "test and treat" policy components and artemether-lumefantrine administration at the facility included the absence of previous RDT stock-outs, community health workers dispensing drugs, access to malaria case-management and Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) guidelines, health workers' gender, correct health workers' knowledge about the targeted malaria treatment policy, and patients' main complaint of fever. The odds of compliance at the baseline were variable for some of the factors.

CONCLUSIONS

Targeting of low malaria risk areas, low caseload facilities, male and government health workers, continuous availability of RDTs, improving health workers' knowledge about the policy considering age and fever, and dissemination of guidelines might improve compliance with malaria guidelines. For prompt treatment and administration of the first artemether-lumefantrine dose at the facility, task-shifting duties to community health workers can be considered.

Aligning Patient Safety and Stewardship: A Harm Reduction Strategy for Children

Purpose of review

Review important patient safety and stewardship concepts and use clinical examples to describe how they align to improve patient outcomes and reduce harm for children.

Recent findings

Current evidence indicates that healthcare overuse is substantial. Unnecessary care leads to avoidable adverse events, anxiety and distress, and financial toxicity. Increases in antimicrobial resistance, venous thromboembolism, radiation exposure, and healthcare costs are examples of patient harm associated with a lack of stewardship. Studies indicate that many tools can increase standardization of care, improve resource utilization, and enhance safety culture to better align safety and stewardship.

Summary

The principles of stewardship and parsimonious care can improve patient safety for children.

Neonatal mortality in Kenyan hospitals: a multisite, retrospective, cohort study

BACKGROUND

Most of the deaths among neonates in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) can be prevented through universal access to basic high-quality health services including essential facility-based inpatient care. However, poor routine data undermines data-informed efforts to monitor and promote improvements in the quality of newborn care across hospitals.

METHODS

Continuously collected routine patients' data from structured paper record forms for all admissions to newborn units (NBUs) from 16 purposively selected Kenyan public hospitals that are part of a clinical information network were analysed together with data from all paediatric admissions ages 0-13 years from 14 of these hospitals. Data are used to show the proportion of all admissions and deaths in the neonatal age group and examine morbidity and mortality patterns, stratified by birth weight, and their variation across hospitals.

FINDINGS

During the 354 hospital months study period, 90 222 patients were admitted to the 14 hospitals contributing NBU and general paediatric ward data. 46% of all the admissions were neonates (aged 0-28 days), but they accounted for 66% of the deaths in the age group 0-13 years. 41 657 inborn neonates were admitted in the NBUs across the 16 hospitals during the study period. 4266/41 657 died giving a crude mortality rate of 10.2% (95% CI 9.97% to 10.55%), with 60% of these deaths occurring on the first-day of admission. Intrapartum-related complications was the single most common diagnosis among the neonates with birth weight of 2000 g or more who died. A threefold variation in mortality across hospitals was observed for birth weight categories 1000-1499 g and 1500-1999 g.

INTERPRETATION

The high proportion of neonatal deaths in hospitals may reflect changing patterns of childhood mortality. Majority of newborns died of preventable causes (>95%). Despite availability of high-impact low-cost interventions, hospitals have high and very variable mortality proportions after stratification by birth weight.

Handling missing data in a composite outcome with partially observed components: simulation study based on clustered paediatric routine data

Composite scores are useful in providing insights and trends about complex and multidimensional quality of care processes. However, missing data in subcomponents may hinder the overall reliability of a composite measure. In this study, strategies for handling missing data in Paediatric Admission Quality of Care (PAQC) score, an ordinal composite outcome, were explored through a simulation study. Specifically, the implications of the conventional method employed in addressing missing PAQC score subcomponents, consisting of scoring missing PAQC score components with a zero, and a multiple imputation (MI)-based strategy, were assessed. The latent normal joint modelling MI approach was used for the latter. Across simulation scenarios, MI of missing PAQC score elements at item level produced minimally biased estimates compared to the conventional method. Moreover, regression coefficients were more prone to bias compared to standards errors. Magnitude of bias was dependent on the proportion of missingness and the missing data generating mechanism. Therefore, incomplete composite outcome subcomponents should be handled carefully to alleviate potential for biased estimates and misleading inferences. Further research on other strategies of imputing at the component and composite outcome level and imputing compatibly with the substantive model in this setting, is needed.

Employing learning health system principles to advance research on severe neonatal and paediatric illness in Kenya

We have worked to develop a Clinical Information Network (CIN) in Kenya as an early form of learning health systems (LHS) focused on paediatric and neonatal care that now spans 22 hospitals. CIN's aim was to examine important outcomes of hospitalisation at scale, identify and ultimately solve practical problems of service delivery, drive improvements in quality and test interventions. By including multiple routine settings in research, we aimed to promote generalisability of findings and demonstrate potential efficiencies derived from LHS. We illustrate the nature and range of research CIN has supported over the past 7 years as a form of LHS. Clinically, this has largely focused on common, serious paediatric illnesses such as pneumonia, malaria and diarrhoea with dehydration with recent extensions to neonatal illnesses. CIN also enables examination of the quality of care, for example that provided to children with severe malnutrition and the challenges encountered in routine settings in adopting simple technologies (pulse oximetry) and more advanced diagnostics (eg, Xpert MTB/RIF). Although regular feedback to hospitals has been associated with some improvements in quality data continue to highlight system challenges that undermine provision of basic, quality care (eg, poor access to blood glucose testing and routine microbiology). These challenges include those associated with increased mortality risk (eg, delays in blood transfusion). Using the same data the CIN platform has enabled conduct of randomised trials and supports malaria vaccine and most recently COVID-19 surveillance. Employing LHS principles has meant engaging front-line workers, clinical managers and national stakeholders throughout. Our experience suggests LHS can be developed in low and middle-income countries that efficiently enable contextually appropriate research and contribute to strengthening of health services and research systems.

Community-Based Interventions to Reduce Child Stunting in Rural Guatemala: A Quality Improvement Model

Rural Guatemala has one of the highest rates of chronic child malnutrition (stunting) in the world, with little progress despite considerable efforts to scale up evidence-based nutrition interventions. Recent literature suggests that one factor limiting impact is inadequate supervisory support for frontline workers. Here we describe a community-based quality improvement intervention in a region with a high rate of stunting. The intervention provided audit and feedback support to frontline nutrition workers through electronic worklists, performance dashboards, and one-on-one feedback sessions. We visualized performance indicators and child nutrition outcomes during the improvement intervention using run charts and control charts. In this small community-based sample (125 households at program initiation), over the two-year improvement period, there were marked improvements in the delivery of program components, such as growth monitoring services and micronutrient supplements. The prevalence of child stunting fell from 42.4 to 30.6%, meeting criteria for special cause variation. The mean length/height-for-age Z-score rose from −1.77 to −1.47, also meeting criteria for special cause variation. In conclusion, the addition of structured performance visualization and audit and feedback components to an existing community-based nutrition program improved child health indicators significantly through improving the fidelity of an existing evidence-based nutrition package.

Cost of Nine Pediatric Infectious Illnesses in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review of Cost-of-Illness Studies

BACKGROUND

Cost-of-illness data from empirical studies provide insights into the use of healthcare resources including both expenditures and the opportunity cost related to receiving treatment.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this systematic review was to gather cost data and relevant parameters for hepatitis B, pneumonia, meningitis, encephalitis caused by Japanese encephalitis, rubella, yellow fever, measles, influenza, and acute gastroenteritis in children in low- and middle-income countries.

DATA SOURCES

Peer-reviewed studies published in public health, medical, and economic journals indexed in PubMed (MEDLINE), Embase, and EconLit.

STUDY ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA, PARTICIPANTS, AND INTERVENTIONS

Studies must (1) be peer reviewed, (2) be published in 2000-2016, (3) provide cost data for one of the nine diseases in children aged under 5 years in low- and middle-income countries, and (4) generated from primary data collection.

LIMITATIONS

We cannot exclude missing a few articles in our review. Measures were taken to reduce this risk. Several articles published since 2016 are omitted from the systematic review results, these articles are included in the discussion.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS OF KEY FINDINGS

The review yielded 37 articles and 267 sets of cost estimates. We found no cost-of-illness studies with cost estimates for hepatitis B, measles, rubella, or yellow fever from primary data. Most estimates were from countries in Gavi preparatory (28%) and accelerated (28%) transition, followed by those who are initiating self-financing (22%) and those not eligible for Gavi support (19%). Thirteen articles compared household expenses to manage illnesses with income and two articles with other household expenses, such as food, clothing, and rent. An episode of illness represented 1-75% of the household's monthly income or 10-83% of its monthly expenses. Articles that presented both household and government perspectives showed that most often governments incurred greater costs than households, including non-medical and indirect costs, across countries of all income statuses, with a few notable exceptions. Although limited for low- and middle-income country settings, cost estimates generated from primary data collection provided a 'real-world' estimate of the economic burden of vaccine-preventable diseases. Additional information on whether common situations preventing the application of official clinical guidelines (such as medication stock-outs) occurred would help reveal deficiencies in the health system. Improving the availability of cost-of-illness evidence can inform the public policy agenda about healthcare priorities and can help to operationalize the healthcare budget in local health systems to respond adequately to the burden of illness in the community.

Handling missing data in modelling quality of clinician-prescribed routine care: Sensitivity analysis of departure from missing at random assumption

Missing information is a major drawback in analyzing data collected in many routine health care settings. Multiple imputation assuming a missing at random mechanism is a popular method to handle missing data. The missing at random assumption cannot be confirmed from the observed data alone, hence the need for sensitivity analysis to assess robustness of inference. However, sensitivity analysis is rarely conducted and reported in practice. We analyzed routine paediatric data collected during a cluster randomized trial conducted in Kenyan hospitals. We imputed missing patient and clinician-level variables assuming the missing at random mechanism. We also imputed missing clinician-level variables assuming a missing not at random mechanism. We incorporated opinions from 15 clinical experts in the form of prior distributions and shift parameters in the delta adjustment method. An interaction between trial intervention arm and follow-up time, hospital, clinician and patient-level factors were included in a proportional odds random-effects analysis model. We performed these analyses using R functions derived from the jomo package. Parameter estimates from multiple imputation under the missing at random mechanism were similar to multiple imputation estimates assuming the missing not at random mechanism. Our inferences were insensitive to departures from the missing at random assumption using either the prior distributions or shift parameters sensitivity analysis approach.

Designs and methods for implementation research: Advancing the mission of the CTSA program

INTRODUCTION

The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) established the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) program in response to the challenges of translating biomedical and behavioral interventions from discovery to real-world use. To address the challenge of translating evidence-based interventions (EBIs) into practice, the field of implementation science has emerged as a distinct discipline. With the distinction between EBI effectiveness research and implementation research comes differences in study design and methodology, shifting focus from clinical outcomes to the systems that support adoption and delivery of EBIs with fidelity.

METHODS

Implementation research designs share many of the foundational elements and assumptions of efficacy/effectiveness research. Designs and methods that are currently applied in implementation research include experimental, quasi-experimental, observational, hybrid effectiveness-implementation, simulation modeling, and configurational comparative methods.

RESULTS

Examples of specific research designs and methods illustrate their use in implementation science. We propose that the CTSA program takes advantage of the momentum of the field's capacity building in three ways: 1) integrate state-of-the-science implementation methods and designs into its existing body of research; 2) position itself at the forefront of advancing the science of implementation science by collaborating with other NIH institutes that share the goal of advancing implementation science; and 3) provide adequate training in implementation science.

CONCLUSIONS

As implementation methodologies mature, both implementation science and the CTSA program would greatly benefit from cross-fertilizing expertise and shared infrastructures that aim to advance healthcare in the USA and around the world.

Analysis of Hierarchical Routine Data With Covariate Missingness: Effects of Audit & Feedback on Clinicians' Prescribed Pediatric Pneumonia Care in Kenyan Hospitals

Background: Routine clinical data are widely used in many countries to monitor quality of care. A limitation of routine data is missing information which occurs due to lack of documentation of care processes by health care providers, poor record keeping, or limited health care technology at facility level. Our objective was to address missing covariates while properly accounting for hierarchical structure in routine pediatric pneumonia care.

Methods: We analyzed routine data collected during a cluster randomized trial to investigating the effect of audit and feedback (A&F) over time on inpatient pneumonia care among children admitted in 12 Kenyan hospitals between March and November 2016. Six hospitals in the intervention arm received enhance A&F on classification and treatment of pneumonia cases in addition to a standard A&F report on general inpatient pediatric care. The remaining six in control arm received standard A&F alone. We derived and analyzed a composite outcome known as Pediatric Admission Quality of Care (PAQC) score. In our analysis, we adjusted for patients, clinician and hospital level factors. Missing data occurred in patient and clinician level variables. We did multiple imputation of missing covariates within the joint model imputation framework. We fitted proportion odds random effects model and generalized estimating equation (GEE) models to the data before and after multilevel multiple imputation.

Results: Overall, 2,299 children aged 2 to 59 months were admitted with childhood pneumonia in 12 hospitals during the trial period. 2,127 (92%) of the children (level 1) were admitted by 378 clinicians across the 12 hospitals. Enhanced A&F led to improved inpatient pediatric pneumonia care over time compared to standard A&F. Female clinicians and hospitals with low admission workload were associated with higher uptake of the new pneumonia guidelines during the trial period. In both random effects and marginal model, parameter estimates were biased and inefficient under complete case analysis.

Conclusions: Enhanced A&F improved the uptake of WHO recommended pediatric pneumonia guidelines over time compared to standard audit and feedback. When imputing missing data, it is important to account for the hierarchical structure to ensure compatibility with analysis models of interest to alleviate bias.