Register for September 8th Global Nursing Impact Series

 

UCSF welcomes all participants to our events. If you need a reasonable accommodation to participate in this event because of a disability, please contact Pilar Deer at [email protected] as soon as possible.

 

Join us to learn about Systematic Assessment Resuscitation Training (StART), a context-appropriate pediatric emergency care program developed for healthcare providers working in low-resource settings. StART combines systematic ABCDE assessment, pediatric Basic Life Support, practical team-based training, and a Training-of-Trainers model designed to support sustainable, locally led training capacity.

 

Rona and Elisha will share why StART was developed, how the program was designed, implemented, and evaluated across Uganda, Nigeria, and Rwanda, and what they learned from the pilot. We also congratulate Rona, Elisha, and their collaborators on the recent publication of this work in PLOS Global Public Health, titled “Pediatric assessment and early resuscitation capacity building: Multi-country implementation of the StART Training-of-Trainers Model in Rwanda, Uganda, and Nigeria.”

 

Rona Breese, BA, RGN, FHEA, is a registered nurse and independent training consultant based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, with extensive experience in nursing education, simulation, and workforce development across East Africa. She led the multidisciplinary team that co-developed SmART BLS (Systematic Assessment and Resuscitation Training – Basic Life Support) to address critical gaps in healthcare worker education related to the early recognition and management of pediatric critical illness. With support from Smile Train, SmART BLS was piloted and evaluated in Uganda, Nigeria, and Rwanda, and has since expanded to additional countries across Africa, strengthening pediatric nursing capacity through sustainable train-the-trainer programs.

Elisha Okaisu, BSN, RN, PG, is a Critical Care Nurse Practice Instructor at CURE Children’s Hospital of Uganda with postgraduate training in critical care nursing and almost two decades of experience in clinical practice, leadership, and healthcare education. He was part of the team that co-developed StART and has since been involved in delivering the course and training healthcare providers across Africa.

 

Building on the success of the first SmART BLS pilot programs, Rona and Elisha are now partnering with colleagues at Mulago National Referral Hospital, the UCSF Center for Global Nursing, UCSF Health, and KidsOR to strengthen sustainable, locally led pediatric emergency nursing education in Uganda. We are honored to be part of this collaboration and look forward to sharing more as this partnership continues to grow.