End of April, the World Health Organization launched standards for improving quality of care for children and young adolescents in health facilities.
Here are interviews with representatives from WHO, a hospital in Ethiopia, USAID and JSI sharing their views on what impact these standards could have in improving quality of care for children.
These eight paediatric standards of care recognize that children aged 0 to 15 years have specific health, physical, psychosocial, developmental and communication needs. They set what is required to improve both the provision of care for children and adolescents and their experience of care, and call for health facilities to create a child-friendly environment.
Introducing WHO's new standards of care for children and young adolescents in facilities - Wilson Were, WHO Headquarters
Paediatric triage and child-friendly wards in Ethiopia - Dr Gezahegn Nekatibeb Techane, paediatrician at Debre Berhan Referral Hospital, Ethiopia
'Paediatric standards set benchmarks to keep us on track' - Troy Jacobs, USAID
'No product, no program: access to child health commodities is key for paediatric care' - Zeenat Patel, MCSP/JSI
The paediatric standards of care are the second set in a series of standards for quality of care and compliment WHO’s standards for improving quality of maternal and newborn care in health facilities published in 2016.
More resources:
- Policy brief: standards for improving quality of for children and young adolescents in health facilities
- Infographic
- More on quality of care: http://www.who.int/maternal_child_adolescent/topics/quality-of-care/en/
- Publications on quality of care standards: http://www.who.int/maternal_child_adolescent/documents/care-quality/en/
