QI Blog: September 2020
General Practitioner Dr Richard Pratt, reflects on the journey of Paediatric Care Online and looks at how its foundations can pave the way for future improvement.
At the core of innovation lies an inquisitiveness and sense of hope; how can things be better? That was the origin of Paediatric Care Online, a collaboration from 2015 to 2020 between the RCPCH and Royal College of GPs – how can we harmonise the healthcare provided to children in the UK?
The origins are contested but the sentiment resonates deeply; it takes a village to raise a child. This is well extended to our understanding of meeting the healthcare needs of children. In harmonising the approach, we sought to embrace contributions and support the full range of people looking after children, be them sub-specialist Paediatricians or Primary Care teams.
In Primary Care, much like in General Paediatrics, we see children with undifferentiated illness. After all, children enter our consulting rooms with a cough rather than pneumonia, abdominal pain instead of appendicitis. It’s our task to help make sense of their illness with them, diagnosing and treating.
Matching support in the decision-making process with a resource that picks up at the point of contact rather than the point of diagnosis as a consequence is invaluable. Creating this resource became our mission, and Paediatric Care Online made a strong contribution. However, every project has its lifecycle.
The learning lives on and entwined in its story lies much to ponder through the lens of innovation.
Dr Richard Pratt
General Practitioner & Founder of ForMyDoctor
Dr Pratt will be speaking on innovation in paediatrics from Primary Care at the virtual QI symposium on October 6th 2020. Visit the RCPCH website for more details and register for the event here.