Healthcare | Wednesday 17 June, 2015 12:10 am |

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) has released a new, interactive guide designed to help inform the success of those in any health care setting striving to design and execute large-scale improvement initiatives. The guide draws on lessons learned from seven years of work on Project Fives Alive!(PFA!), and the successful implementation and spread of front-line strategies to reduce preventable deaths in children less than five years of age in Ghana.

Beginning in 2008, PFA! – in partnership with the National Catholic Health Service of Ghana, and with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – has worked with patients, communities, and leaders from health care facilities, districts, and regions across Ghana to build their understanding and use of quality improvement (QI) methodologies to accelerate significant reductions in avoidable deaths in children under five years of age. The program, currently implemented in 134 hospitals in the country, drove a 31% reduction in under-5 mortality, a 37% reduction in post-neonatal infant mortality, and a 35% reduction in the under-5 malaria case fatality rate.

“We knew between our successes and our missteps that the work done in this program could offer lessons of immense value to others embarking on similar large-scale improvement projects,” said Sodzi Sodzi-Tettey, MD, Director, PFA! & Senior Technical Director, Africa Region, IHI. “The guide aims to serve as a repeatable roadmap to those successes — sharing the insight and guidance needed to customize others’ efforts to integrate quality improvement in health care projects and systems.”