Improving the quality of COVID-19 care in Sierra Leone: A modified Delphi process and serial nationwide assessments of quality of COVID-19 care in Sierra Leone.

Abstract

IntroductionImproving the quality of care that patients receive is paramount to improving patient outcomes and engendering trust during infectious disease outbreaks. Whilst Quality Improvement (QI) is well established to drive improvement in routine care and in health systems, there are fewer reports of its use during infectious disease outbreaks.MethodsA modified Delphi process was undertaken to create a standardized assessment tool for the quality of COVID-19 care in Sierra Leone. Four rounds of assessment were undertaken between July 2020 and July 2021. To assess change across the four assessment periods compared to baseline we used a mixed effects model and report coefficients and p values.ResultsDuring the Delphi process, 12/14 participants selected the domains to be assessed within the tool. The final 50 questions included 13 outcome questions, 17 process questions and 20 input questions. A total of 94 assessments were undertaken over four assessment periods at 27 facilities. An increase of 8.75 (p = ConclusionWe demonstrate the feasibility of creating a quality of care assessment tool and conducting sequential nationwide assessments during an infectious disease outbreak. We report significant improvements in quality-of-care scores in round 2 and round 3 compared to baseline, however, these improvements were not sustained. We recommend the use of QI and the creation of standardised assessment tools to improve quality of care during outbreak responses.