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Purpose: Located in Arusha, Tanzania, The Plaster House provides rehabilitative services to children receiving surgical care for treatable disabilities. This article describes a set of outcome measurements developed in a collaborative relationship between an evaluation team from The Plaster House staff and St. Catherine University faculty, focused on effectively and efficiently collecting post-operative evaluation and outcome data from a rehabilitative care facility for children with treatable disabilities. Method:From seven care pathways utilised for surgically treatable disabilities (cleft lip and palate, spina bifida, skeletal fluorosis, osteomyelitis, burns, clubfoot and hydrocephalus), an interactive process led to the development of a medical assessment tool for monitoring and evaluation with limited electronic health record and staffing capacity. Results: The medical assessment tool serves multiple purposes for the rehabilitation programme, including monitoring participants' progress, evaluating the effectiveness of current practices, and sharing data with stakeholders. The tool includes collection of demographic and background information, one to three diagnosis-specific indicators to measure progress, and three questions related to typical development (activities of daily living, play, and social interaction). Conclusion and Implications:Due to the delayed ability to conduct a site visit, the evaluation team relied heavily on effective communication to sufficiently relay challenges and successes in developing and implementing the tool. The proposed medical assessment tool developed by an interprofessional team has

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Objectives To describe a medical assessment tool developed to track patient outcomes for post-operative, rehabilitative pediatric care in efforts to effectively collect evaluation and monitoring data in a limited resource setting. Methods The Plaster House in Arusha, Tanzania partnered with an interdisciplinary academic team (dietetics, nursing, occupational therapy, physical therapy, physician assistant, public health, and social work) from St. Catherine University (St. Paul, MN, USA). Through an 18-month iterative process, the team created an assets map, logic model and evaluation plan. To measure goals in the logic model, an assessment tool was developed to monitor and evaluate patient post-operative recovery for children with cleft lip/palate, spina bifida, skeletal fluorosis, osteomyelitis, burn scar contractures, or clubfoot. Diagnosis-specific indicators were determined collaboratively using evidence-based measures the team agreed would be simple to collect and reliable when different team members collect the measurement. Results The tool evaluates nutritional status, one diagnosis-specific indicator, and three developmental indicators recorded at intake and discharge. For example, a child with spina bifida is evaluated on bladder and bowel continence. If the child is incontinent of bladder or bowel, the tool asks whether management of the incontinence is child managed, parent managed, or not managed. The developmental indicators assess age-appropriate level assessment of everyday tasks, such as activities of daily living, play, and social interaction. Conclusions The medical assessment tool serves multiple purposes for the pediatric rehabilitation program, including monitoring participants’ progress, evaluating the effectiveness of current practices, and sharing data with funders.This medical assessment tool has the potential to feasibly capture outcome measurements post-operation on seven correctable disabilities for pediatric rehabilitative care facilities with limited resources. Funding Sources GHR Foundation.