Saving young lives: Triage and management of sepsis in children using the point of care Paediatric Rapid Sepsis Trigger (PRST) tool

In 2019, Dr Tex Kissoon established a new collaboration between UBC and the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) to lead a health system strengthening project to improve the quality of care for children with sepsis. Working with coapplicants Drs Ansermino and Dumont, this quality improvement (QI) program will include qualitative analysis of barriers and facilitators for high-quality care and use a digital platform to collect standardized data to drive QI.

It’s with great excitement that in collaboration with the Centre for International Child Health, we can announce the launch of the collaborative research study, “Saving young lives: Triage and management of sepsis in children using the point of care Paediatric Rapid Sepsis Trigger (PRST) tool”. In partnership with the University of British Columbia, KEMRI, and Walimu in Uganda, the study is funded through a $1.5 million dollar Innovators Award from the Wellcome Trust.

Smart Triage aims to develop an easily accessible, affordable mobile PRST tool that can be used by health workers to rapidly triage pediatric patients in low resource settings. The study will focus on assessing the usability, feasibility, and acceptability of the PRST application at our partner institutions in Nairobi, Kenya and Jinja, Uganda. Beginning enrollment in March 2020, the study will continue through to January 2022. Congratulations to Action on Sepsis trainee Alishah Mawji and the team for their first
project publication including the PRST Data Dictionary!