In developing countries, intravenous (IV) catheter related infections (CRI) rate is generally high. Neonates are more susceptible to develop CRI. We examined the impact of a quality improvement project on IV CRI rates in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of a district hospital in Rwanda. A pre-and post-intervention study was conducted from 2014 to 2016 to evaluate the IV CRI rate and nurses' IV management technique. A written test was administered to evaluate their knowledge on the matter. The intervention had three components: First implementing an IV management policy. Secondly, training staff on the policy and finally, managers provided support and supervision during the change. We measured five indicators: (1) the IV CRI rate; (2) the percentage of nurses who tested ≥ 80% on IV management knowledge; (3) the percentage of IV devices changed following the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline; (4) IV management technique; and (5) the hospital length of stay (LOS). The IV CRI rate reduced from 32.1% to 14.5% (p < .001). The hospital LOS reduced from 15.31 to 7.43 days (p < .001). The compliance of changing IV following WHO guideline increased from 0% to 99% (p < .001); proper IV management technique use increased from 43% to 96% (p < .001); the mean rank of staff on IV management knowledge score significantly increased from 3.5 to 9.5 (p = .004). This project demonstrates that a quality improvement project can help address the IV CRI at very low cost in a resource-challenged setting.

The general objective of this study was to assess the predicators of nutrition management failure among children under-five who participated in the nutrition program from 2012 up to 2015 in Nyamasheke District, Rwanda. The study included 169 children, out of which 78 were males and the remaining 91 were females. Of the children examined, 20.1% exhibited stunting growth of these 61.8% were females, 42.6% were underweight of these 51.4% were females and 10.1% were wasting of these 70.6% were males. Failure of nutritional management intervention was associated with both health system and family related factors. The common Health system predictors associated with failure of nutritional management programme were few activities related to the promotion of breastfeeding (OR: 5.0; 95 % CI: 1.56-16.2, P = 0.007), not following the Ministry of Health malnutrition management guidelines (OR: 5.85, 95% CI: 1.93417.69, P = 0.002), and poor knowledge about malnutrition management guideline (OR: 0.45, 95% CI: 0.21-0.99, P = 0.049). Family related predictors associated to the failure of nutritional management intervention include childhood illness such as fever (OR: 0.76, 95% CI: 0.36-1.61 P= 0.035), duration of breastfeeding (OR 0.7: 95% CI: 0.45-7.02 p = 0.035), number of meals per day (OR: 1.85 95% CI: 0.60-5.73; P = 0.002), and maternal age (OR: 1.96, 95% CI: 0.31-12.12; P = 0.027). These factors associated with failure of nutrition management should be considered in establishing effective measures for successful management and prevention of malnutrition.