Introduction
Survival from pediatric cancers in low-middle-income countries (LMICs) is much lower than higher income countries (HICs) due to late presentation, delayed diagnosis, difficulty with accessing health care, drug unavailability and treatment abandonment[1-13]. There is often an extreme shortage of trained health care providers and the referral pathway to a hospital equipped to care for children with cancer is burdened by long wait times, travel time and distance and financial barriers. Within Kenya, financial barriers, lack of standardized treatment protocols and inconsistent family education about the planned treatment, as well as concerns with treatment delays within the hospitals have been shown to lead to abandonment of curative therapy[14-19].
The Pediatric Oncology Facility Integrated Local Evaluation Tool (PrOFILE) assessment was developed to identify the strengths and weaknesses of individual institutions within a country, as well as the pediatric oncology services on a national level. Following an extensive needs assessment, workshops are conducted with key stakeholders to identify actionable goals to be achieved over the next few years to improve pediatric oncology care.
The PrOFILE tool provides comprehensive, modular and self-guided institutional self-assessments. PrOFILE had already been conducted in 61 pediatric oncology units in 16 countries. Each institution and country received score-based reports and then workshops were conducted either in-person or completely virtual. Outcome based goals were then set by each country to improve care within pre-determined time frames. Due to timing around an improving, but still ongoing pandemic, the Kenyan PrOFILE workshop was the first one conducted in a hybrid format.