Kategorie: China Cal

Mid-Year Grant Report 2016: China Cal

10/10/2016

Dr. Feng Long He trains doctor how to examine newborn heart using the stethoscope.

Newborn Congenital Heart Screening Training and Evaluation Program

The Yunnan Newborn Training Program has the goal of training all rural Yunnan county obstetricians and obstetric nurses to perform proper newborn cardiac examinations. The program, started in 2014, is the largest of its kind in China and one of the largest of its kind in the world.

More than sixty percent of births in rural Yunnan province occur in relatively large county hospitals. This centralization of birthing is the result of a Chinese government campaign to decrease morbidity and mortality during childbirth. County hospital newborn care protocols include testing for metabolic diseases and examination for spinal deformities but do not include routine testing using stethoscope and pulse oximetry for critical congenital heart disease, which is now routine in the United States and in most other developed nations.

The training program and its evaluation have been successful in completing training in about three quarters of Yunnan county hospitals. Screening rates in almost all hospitals exceed 90%. The program has therefore been overwhelmingly successful. However, there are some important problems detected by the evaluation of the program, which are explained in this report.

Rui Zhang trains rural doctors and nurses how to do proper screening of newborn babies.

China Cal: Newborn Screening Training and Evaluation Program

10/19/2015

Early CHD Detection is Crucial

Nineteen-year-old Rui Rui broke down crying when she heard the doctor’s news—it’s too late for her to have surgery. Her congenital heart disease wasn’t diagnosed early enough. Over the years she’s developed high pressure in her pulmonary artery, which prevents her from getting the surgery she hoped would cure her. Now she can only resort to medication to stabilize her condition. Imagine how Rui Rui’s life could have been different if only she had been diagnosed earlier. China Cal is striving to change the situation before it’s too late for other children.

China Cal: Yunnan Province Pediatric Heart Training and Evaluation Program

6/20/2015

Yunnan Newborn

China Cal’s program to train county doctors to properly examine newborns is progressing as planned. With the help of a grant from The Ping and Amy Chao Foundation of Los Altos, CA, China Cal has added an evaluation component and a University of California, Irvine Program In Public Health PhD graduate student. Ms Fangqi Guo, who will be the principal investigator for an evaluative study of the training program, will work with the China Cal team in Yunnan for several months this year. We are also grateful to the Masimo Corporation for their kind gift of 125 pulse oximeters to be used in each of the rural Yunnan county hospitals for screening newborns for critical congenital heart disease.

The following is a summary of PhD candidate Fangqi Guo’s research plan.
Undiagnosed congenital cardiac shunt lesions with pulmonary hypertension and critical congenital heart disease (CCHD) kill 3 to 4 of every thousand children in developing countries. Most of these heart defects are completely curable if discovered early in life. Yunnan Province is a slowly developing province of China. The estimated number of infants that die from these heart defects is about 400 per year. Pulse oximetry is an effective screening method to detect CCHD in very early stage. We will provide rural Yunnan county hospitals, where most babies are now born, with equipment and training for doctors and nurses responsible for the care of neonates. We will train these doctors regarding proper neonatal cardiac examination. We will evaluate the increased knowledge and change in behaviour of these trainees. Though rural Yunnan is one of the poorest regions of China, both medical insurance options and financial assistance mechanisms are growing and the level of medical care is continuously improving. The conditions for increased awareness and discovery of undiagnosed congenital heart cases are therefore ideal for addressing this problem in Yunnan Province.

PhD Candidate Fang Qi Guo

Mid-Year Grant Report 2016: China Cal

Newborn Congenital Heart Screening Training and Evaluation Program

China Cal: Newborn Screening Training and Evaluation Program

Early CHD Detection is Crucial

China Cal: Yunnan Province Pediatric Heart Training and Evaluation Program

TFISH FUND BLOG

Top Posts

PHOTOS & VIDEOS

IN THE NEWS

Categories

Archives