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St. Jude and World Health Organization are creating a platform that will transform access to childhood cancer medicines around the world.
Metrics and Performance
The Global Metrics and Performance Unit develops concepts and tools to promote equity and scale up effective interventions in global pediatric oncology. We aim to accelerate progress toward our shared vision of a cure and high-quality care for all children with cancer.
The Metrics program draws from various methodologies, including social epidemiology, health services research, quality improvement and implementation science, and design thinking. The approach emphasizes end-user empowerment to build local expertise in metrics and performance, and, as a community of experts, it generates global standards, feasible targets and meaningful benchmarks in global pediatric oncology.
The program equips care teams and institutions with the tools to measure inequities, evaluate causes, transform thinking, respond promptly to identified gaps, innovate, and continually improve health care services in their settings.
Program Initiatives
The scope of our work includes developing concepts and tools, identifying challenges amenable to quality improvement or the application of implementation science, maintaining a research agenda on the role of nonbiologic factors and supporting St. Jude Global’s regional and transversal programs. Some of our ongoing initiatives are:
- Pediatric Oncology Facility Integrated Local Evaluation (PrOFILE) – PrOFILE is a dynamic 360-degree evaluation of health-services delivery that helps care teams and institutions committed to increasing childhood cancer survival define an improvement strategy. PrOFILE acts as a diagnostic tool, identifying key issues that require attention and improvement. We have developed two versions of PrOFILE, which are similar in structure and delivery but differ in the implementation process' perspective, purpose and elements. For more information about the PrOFILE versions and delivery, click here.
- PrOFILE sibling tools – The “sibling tools” are discipline-specific comprehensive assessments developed using PrOFILE as their backbone. Experts in different disciplines join efforts to build consensus around key indicators to assess capacity and quality of care in their interest area. Thus far, we have collaborated with Global Critical Care, Surgery, Education and Palliative Care programs to develop their respective sibling tools.
- Global Packages – The St. Jude Global Packages are technically sound practice improvement interventions based on cumulative multisite experience and a measurement strategy. St. Jude Global faculty and staff have initiated these interventions and collaboratively designed them with global partners with the intent of global dissemination. The packages serve as solutions to bridge the gap between theory and implementation. For more information about the six elements of St. Jude Global packages, click here.
- St. Jude Global and Institute for Healthcare Improvement (SJG-IHI) Strategic Partnership – The SJG-IHI Strategic Partnership aims to harmonize activities related to practice improvement and strategic planning for a clear global impact. This initiative targets strengthening local and global capacity and capabilities to design and deploy quality improvement interventions across regions and settings. Moreover, it seeks to promote engagement with learning systems that allow our faculty and staff to grow as improvement scientists and position St. Jude as an epicenter of transformative practice improvement. Ultimately, continuously designing and deploying focused, large-scale, high-impact, results-oriented quality improvement initiatives.
Our Team
Paola Friedrich, MD, MPH
Director, Metrics and Performance Unit
Director, Mexico Regional Program
Director, Central and South America Regional Program
Assistant Member, St. Jude Faculty
Miriam Gonzalez-Guzman, MD, M.Sc.
Clinical Research Scientist
Alyana Alvarez, MPH
Program Coordinator