News Release

Better ways to monitor quality of care for newborns

Press release from PLOS Medicine

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

In this week's PLOS Medicine, Sabine Gabrysch from the University of Heidelberg, Germany and colleagues draw upon a literature review, expert survey, and consensus method to recommend new signal functions to monitor and track facilities' provision of routine and emergency newborn care.

While there are currently several indicators of emergency obstetric care (EmOC) that can track and monitor a health service's capacity to respond to important obstetric complications, there are none for most areas of emergency newborn care nor for routine non-emergency care of mothers and newborns. The authors say that their new recommended ways of tracking quality of newborn care "will contribute to improving the quality of maternal and newborn care in low- and middle-income countries, helping to meet Millenium Development Goals 4 and 5."

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Funding: SG is paid by the University of Heidelberg through a Margarete von Wrangell Fellowship supported by the European Social Fund and by the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Wu¨ rttemberg, and has received salary support from the Medical Faculty's Rahel Goitein-Straus Programme. GC participated in this work during her internship at the University of Heidelberg as part of her public health specialization training at the Public Health and Infectious Diseases Department at Sapienza University in Rome. OMRC is supported by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. No funders had any role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interests: ZAB is a member of the PLOS Medicine Editorial Board. All other authors have declared that no competing interests exist. MM and MA work for the World Health Organization (WHO); however, this report contains the collective views of an international group of experts, and does not necessarily represent the decisions or the stated policy of the WHO.

Citation: Gabrysch S, Civitelli G, Edmond KM, Mathai M, Ali M, et al. (2012) New Signal Functions to Measure the Ability of Health Facilities to Provide Routine and Emergency Newborn Care. PLoS Med 9(11): e1001340. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001340

IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER (THIS LINK WILL BECOME LIVE WHEN THE EMBARGO LIFTS):

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001340

CONTACT:

Sabine Gabrysch
University of Heidelberg, Institute of Public Health
Heidelberg, Germany
sabine.gabrysch@uni-heidelberg.de


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