Exciting New Partnership

Global Emergency Care Collaborative is excited to announce our new partnership with Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC). Last month, GECC was awarded a two-year grant to save children’s lives by training non-physician clinicians to provide acute, emergency care services at Masaka Regional Referral Hospital in Masaka, Uganda.

GECC is the first organization addressing acute emergency care as a public health crisis, and the only to employ task-shifting to train non-physician clinicians in resource-limited emergency care. Since the majority of pediatric mortality and morbidity in resource-limited settings is due to common diseases that have inexpensive treatments, task-shifting emergency care to more prevalent clinicians offers an affordable, scalable solution that will significantly impact patient outcomes. We project that emergency care can prevent one death for every 20 children sick enough to be admitted to the hospital and can prevent one death per every 41 children with severe malaria. In comparison with other common public health interventions, these results are substantial; for example, the measles vaccine prevents approximately 1 death per 500 vaccines given.

The long-term objective of this program is to build the capacity of the Ugandan health care system to care for ill and injured children and save lives. GECC has rigorously tracked outcomes of patients treated with emergency care and found significant reductions in pediatric deaths at our pilot project location for all of the major causes of mortality including malaria, pneumonia, and trauma. This project will expand GECC’s successful programming to strengthen health care systems, collaborate with local partners, increase access to health care, and reduce mortality and morbidity from preventable and treatable conditions.

Presently, GECC is preparing the groundwork to begin program implementation in May or June. We look forward to building a successful Emergency Care Practitioner program in partnership with Masaka Regional Referral Hospital, the Uganda Ministry of Health, and RMHC.

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