Improved oxygen systems in district hospitals in Lao PDR: a prospective field trial of the impact on outcomes for childhood pneumonia and equipment sustainability.

Background: Hypoxaemia is a common and potentially fatal complication of many childhood, newborn and maternal conditions but often not well recognised or managed in settings where resources are limited. Oxygen itself is often inaccessible due to cost or logistics. This paper describes implementation of oxygen systems in Lao district hospitals, clinical outcomes after 24 months and equipment outcomes after 40 months postimplementation.

Implementing WHO hospital guidelines improves quality of paediatric care in central hospitals in Lao PDR.

Objectives: To evaluate the impact of implementing a multifaceted intervention based on the WHO Pocketbook of Hospital Care for Children on the quality of case management of common childhood illnesses in hospitals in Lao PDR.

Methods: The quality of case management of four sentinel conditions was assessed in three central hospitals before and after the implementation of the WHO Pocketbook as part of a broader mixed-methods study. Data on performance of key steps in case management in more than 600 admissions were collected by medical record abstraction pre- and post-intervention, and change was measured according to the proportion of cases which key steps were performed as well as an overall score of case management for each condition.