Design of the standardizing care to improve outcomes in pediatric end stage renal disease collaborative

The Standardizing Care to Improve Outcomes in Pediatric End Stage Renal Disease (SCOPE) Collaborative is a North American multi-center quality transformation effort whose primary aim is to minimize exit-site infection and peritonitis rates among pediatric chronic peritoneal dialysis patients. The project, developed by the quality improvement faculty and staff at the Children’s Hospital Association’s Quality Transformation Network (QTN) and content experts in pediatric nephrology and pediatric infectious diseases, is modeled after the QTN’s highly successful Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and Hematology-Oncology central line-associated blood-stream infection (CLABSI) Collaboratives. Like the Association’s other QTN efforts, the SCOPE Collaborative is part of a broader effort to assist pediatric nephrology teams in learning about and using quality improvement methods to develop and implement evidence-based practices. In addition, the design of this project allows for targeted research that builds on high-quality, ongoing data collection. Finally, the project, while focused on reducing peritoneal dialysis catheter-associated infections, will also serve as a model for future pediatric nephrology projects that could further improve the quality of care provided to children with end stage renal disease.