Clinical trial NCT04276103: Surgical Assessment Tool for Ethiopia National Policy Monitoring & Evaluation
Official title: Development of a Surgical Assessment Tool for National Policy Monitoring & Evaluation in Ethiopia: A Quality Improvement Study
Study type: OBSERVATIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Conditions: Global Surgery
Health System
Health Planning
Global Anesthesia
Public Health
Lead sponsor: Harvard Medical School (HMS and HSDM)
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: General Electric
name: Federal Minstry of Health of Ethiopia
name: Jhpiego
First posted: 2020-02-19
Enrollment: 14
Sex: ALL
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Observational model: ECOLOGIC_OR_COMMUNITY
Time perspective: CROSS_SECTIONAL
Sampling method: NON_PROBABILITY_SAMPLE
Study population: The Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' (SNNP) Region is one of Ethiopia's eleven regions, occupying the southwest portion of the country. Public hospitals serve the region's population in this area within three tiers - primary, general, and specialized hospitals. An average of four providers were interviewed per facility and participants included hospital leadership (CEOs, medical directors, and matrons), surgeons, integrated emergency surgical officers, obstetrician-gynecologists, mid-level anesthesia providers, and operating room nurses.

Brief summary: Introduction: A baseline assessment of surgical capacity is recommended as a first-step to inform national policy on surgical system strengthening. In Ethiopia, the World Health Organization's Situational Analysis Tool (WHO SAT) was adapted to assess surgical capacity as part of a national initiative: Saving Lives Through Safe Surgery (SaLTS). This study describes the process of adapting this tool and initial results.

Methods: The new tool was used to evaluate fourteen hospitals in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region of Ethiopia between February and March 2017. Two analytic methods were employed. To compare this data to international metrics, the WHO Service Availability and Readiness Assessment (SARA) framework was used. To assess congruence with national policy, data was evaluated against Ethiopian SaLTS targets.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Fourteen public hospitals (11 primary, 1 general, and 2 specialized) chosen by the regional health bureau
* Hospital staff with willingness to participate in study
* Hospital staff with availability to participate in study

Exclusion Criteria:

* Hospital staff which did not volunteer to participate or refused to participate were excluded.
* Hospital staff not available at the time of visit
* Hospitals not chosen by the regional health bureau

Primary outcomes:
measure: General service readiness
timeFrame: Cross-Sectional, assesses availability of this infrastructure within the past year in general
measure: Basic surgery readiness
timeFrame: Cross-Sectional, assesses availability of tracer items within the past year in general
measure: Comprehensive surgery readiness
timeFrame: Cross-Sectional, assesses availability of tracer items within the past year in general
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
Study officials:
affiliation: Harvard Medical School & Boston Children's Hospital
name: John G Meara, MD, DMD, MBA
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: