Care for sick children in hospitals
Children who are too sick to be managed at first-level health facilities may be referred and managed in local hospitals. These children are the most severely ill and at the greatest risk of dying. Improvements in triage, diagnosis, treatment, monitoring, and follow up care can greatly improve the chances of survival.
Improving the quality of care at this level requires ensuring the availability quality medicines and other supplies, enhancing health worker compliance with evidence-based clinical interventions and practices, correcting inadequate or unhygienic infrastructure, developing competencies, motivating staff, and supporting better documentation and use of information. WHO focuses on developing evidence-based clinical guidelines and care support tools, strategies for improving quality of care, and training courses for health workers.
Hospital care guidelines
Oxygen therapy for children
Hypoxaemia is a major contributor to child deaths that occur worldwide each year; for a child with pneumonia hypoxaemia increases the risk of death by...
Paediatric emergency triage, assessment and treatment: care of critically-ill children
Children admitted to hospital often die within 24 hours of admission. Many of these deaths could be prevented if very sick children are identified soon...
Pocket book of hospital care for children: Second edition
This is the second edition of the Pocket book of hospital care for children. It is for use by doctors, nurses and other health workers who are responsible...
HIV/AIDS affects the health and welfare of children and undermines hard-won gains in child survival in some of the highly-affected countries. The 'Manual...
Surgical care at the district hospital
Surgical Care at the District Hospital is a practical resource for individual practitioners and for use in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, in-service...
Training material
Deaths in hospital often occur within 24 hours of admission. Many of these deaths could be prevented if very sick children are identified soon after their arrival in the health facility, and treatment is started immediately. The Emergency Triage Assessment and Treatment (ETAT) course is designed to familiarize health workers with the ETAT guidelines and to provide them with the necessary knowledge and skills for applying the guidelines. It teaches health workers to:
- Triage all sick children when they arrive at a health facility, into those with emergency signs, with priority signs, or non-urgent cases.
- Provide emergency treatment for life-threatening conditions.
