Dr. Duncan Hau will serve as a co-investigator of the recently launched study, “Smart Discharges in children over 5: Expanding a personalized public health approach to improving discharge care in resource-limited settings,” sponsored by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Led by Principal Investigator, Dr. Matthew Owen Wiens of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver BC, Canada, and co-investigators from Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and the United States, including Weill Cornell Medicine investigators Dr. Duncan Hau, in the Department of Pediatrics, and Dr. Robert Peck and Dr. Radhika Sundararajan of the Center for Global Health, the study aims to expand Smart Discharges in Uganda to other East African countries to improve child survival.
Morbidity and mortality secondary to sepsis disproportionately affects children, especially those in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where over 85% of global cases and deaths occur. For children hospitalized for sepsis and discharged, the post-hospital period can have high rates of mortality (5-10%). Smart Discharges is a personalized and innovative public health approach that uses a predictive risk score to guide the delivery of a counseling and referral-based intervention after discharge for children most at risk of mortality. In young children (<5 years of age), use of Smart Discharges has reduced post-discharge death by 20% to 30% in Uganda. However, older children (>5 years of age) suffer a different pattern of disease than younger children, and a predictive risk model has yet to be developed and validated.
The study goal is to expand Smart Discharges in Uganda and to other East African countries including Rwanda and Tanzania with the aims to: 1) develop and internally validate a clinical risk prediction model for identifying older children admitted for proven or suspected sepsis who are at high-risk of post-discharge death, 2) evaluate post-discharge quality of life in older children admitted for proven or suspected sepsis, and 3) qualitatively assess the adverse post-discharge experiences of older children admitted for proven or suspected sepsis, and the experiences of their families.
The post-hospital period provides a critical window opportunity to improve child survival and save thousands of children’s lives in the region of the world where the burden is greatest.
Visit Smart Discharges to learn more.