A case for updating the WHO Safe Childbirth Checklist to improve newborn care: Experience from seven Asia and Pacific countries.

The WHO Safe Childbirth Checklist (the SCC) is a clinical tool developed to help health workers follow evidence-based maternal and perinatal care practices at childbirth. Newborn delivery care practices at facilities in seven countries in East Asia and the Pacific were compared to practices checked by the SCC. The analysis found that the SCC does not incorporate several key evidence-based practices around birth demonstrated to prevent newborn morbidity or mortality, or harmful practices associated with increased risks.

Guidelines in Low and Middle Income Countries Paper 3: Appraisal of Philippine Clinical Practice Guidelines using Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation II: improvement needed for rigor, applicability, and editorial independence.

Background And Objective: High-quality clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) are needed to guide practitioners, policy makers, and other stakeholders to provide optimal health care. This study aims to appraise the CPGs developed in the Philippines using the AGREE II instrument.

Methods: Ninety-one CPGs were appraised independently by two health-care professionals.

Appraisal of the methodological quality of clinical practice guidelines in the Philippines.

Purpose: The Republic of the Philippines has recently enacted the Universal Health Care Law, which mandates the Philippines Department of Health (DOH) to operationalize evidence-based clinical practice guideline (CPG) development. As a baseline to the foregoing task, the aim of this study was to appraise the methodological quality of CPGs previously developed and currently being disseminated in the Philippines. A multimethod search for CPGs was implemented.

Improving immediate newborn care practices in Philippine hospitals: impact of a national quality of care initiative 2008-2015.

Objective: To determine whether intrapartum and newborn care practices improved in 11 large hospitals between 2008 and 2015.

Design: Secondary data analysis of observational assessments conducted in 11 hospitals in 2008 and 2015.

Setting: Eleven large government hospitals from five regions in the Philippines.

Controversy and debate on dengue vaccine series-paper 1: review of a licensed dengue vaccine: inappropriate subgroup analyses and selective reporting may cause harm in mass vaccination programs.

Severe life-threatening dengue fever usually occurs when a child is infected by dengue virus a second time. This is caused by a phenomenon called antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). Since dengue vaccines can mimic a first infection in seronegative children (those with no previous infection), a natural infection later in life could lead to severe disease.

Immediate newborn care practices delay thermoregulation and breastfeeding initiation.

Aim: A deadly nosocomial outbreak in a Philippine hospital drew nationwide attention to neonatal sepsis. Together with specific infection control measures, interventions that protect newborns against infection-related mortality include drying, skin-to-skin contact, delayed cord clamping, breastfeeding initiation and delayed bathing. This evaluation characterized hospital care in the first hours of life with the intent to drive policy change, strategic planning and hospital reform.

Trade-off between benefit and harm is crucial in health screening recommendations. Part I: general principles.

Health screening is defined as the use of a test or a series of tests to detect unrecognized health risks or preclinical disease in apparently healthy populations to permit prevention and timely intervention. A health screening strategy consists of the sequence of a screening test, confirmatory test(s), and finally, treatment(s) for the condition detected. The potential benefits of health screening are easy to understand, but the huge potential for physical and psychological harm is less well recognized.

Trade-off between benefit and harm is crucial in health screening recommendations. Part II: evidence summaries.

Evidence on the effectiveness of health screening strategies may be direct (i.e., studies on screening vs.