ABSTRACT
Representatives from the Alliance of Global Neonatal Nursing address the worldwide shortage of nurses.
Subject(s)
Nurses , Infant, Newborn , Humans , WorkforceABSTRACT
Representatives from the Alliance of Global Neonatal Nursing address the worldwide shortage of nurses.
Subject(s)
Nurses , Infant, Newborn , Humans , WorkforceABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To implement a quality improvement (QI) scorecard as a tool for enhancing quality and safety efforts in level 1 and 2 community hospital nurseries affiliated with Nationwide Children's Hospital. STUDY DESIGN: A QI scorecard was developed for data collection, analytics, and reporting of neonatal quality metrics and cross-sector collaboration. Newborn characteristics were included for risk stratification, as were clinical and process measures associated with neonatal morbidity and mortality. Quality and safety activities took place in community hospital newborn nurseries in Ohio, and education was provided in both online and in-person collaborations, followed by local team sessions at partner institutions. Baseline (first 12 months) and postbaseline comparisons of clinical and process measures were analyzed by logistic regression, adjusting for potential confounders. RESULTS: In logistic regression models, at least 1 center documented improvements in each of the 4 process measures, and 3 of the 4 centers documented improvements in compliance with glucose checks obtained within 90 minutes of birth among at-risk infants. CONCLUSION: Collaborative QI projects led to improvements in perinatal metrics associated with important outcomes. Formation of a center-driven QI scorecard is feasible and provides community hospitals with a framework for collecting, analyzing, and reporting neonatal QI metrics.
Subject(s)
Hospitals, Community , Nurseries, Infant , Child , Female , Hospitals, Pediatric , Humans , Infant , Infant, Newborn , Nurseries, Hospital , Pregnancy , Quality ImprovementSubject(s)
Infant Care , Practice Guidelines as Topic , Sleep , Humans , Infant , Infant Care/methods , Infant Care/standards , Infant, Newborn , Neonatal Nursing , Societies, NursingABSTRACT
Many hospitalized infants are not observed in an American Academy of Pediatrics-recommended safe sleep environment, which can translate to unsafe sleep practices at home. We implemented this collaborative to reduce our county's sleep-related death rate by improving infant safe sleep practices in the freestanding children's hospital setting and increasing safe sleep screening and education in our clinics and emergency departments (EDs). METHODS: Physicians from our institution's primary care clinics, EDs, neonatal intensive care units, and general inpatient units created and led multidisciplinary safe sleep teams. Teams have used standardized data tools to collect information on infant patient ages and sleep position and environment, both in the hospital and at home. Based on audit data, teams have implemented multiple Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles during this collaborative. We have calculated changes in safe sleep practices in the hospital and changes in screening and education on safe sleep behaviors over time. RESULTS: Our teams have significantly increased compliance with safe sleep practices in the inpatient and neonatal intensive care unit settings (P < 0.01). We have also increased screening and education on appropriate safe sleep behaviors by ED and primary care providers (P < 0.01). Our county's sleep-related death rate has not significantly decreased during the collaborative. CONCLUSIONS: Our collaborative has increased American Academy of Pediatrics-recommended safe sleep practices in our institution, and we decreased sleep-related deaths in our primary care network. We have created stronger ties to our community partners working to decrease infant mortality rates. More efforts will be needed, both within and outside of our institution, to lower our community's sleep-related death rate.
ABSTRACT
In recent years, the National Association of Neonatal Nurses and the National Association of Neonatal Nurse Practitioners have been monitoring aspects of neonatal advanced practice nursing and providing leadership and advocacy to address concerns related to workforce, education, competency, fatigue, safety, and scope of practice. This white paper discusses current barriers within neonatal advanced practice registered nurse practice as well as strategies to promote the longevity of the neonatal advanced practice registered nurse roles.
Subject(s)
Advanced Practice Nursing/trends , Neonatal Nursing/trends , Nurse Clinicians/trends , Nurse Practitioners/trends , Nurse's Role , Societies, Nursing/trends , Forecasting , Humans , Infant, Newborn , Leadership , Organizational Objectives , United StatesABSTRACT
Neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) is becoming a national epidemic. Neonates with NAS display myriad signs during withdrawal from the drugs they were exposed to in utero. One sign is skin excoriation, as well as other skin injuries. While care of the neonate experiencing NAS has been well documented in the literature, the care of the skin of that neonate has not. The purpose of this monograph is to discuss the current literature on neonatal abstinence syndrome, to describe the anatomy and physiology of neonatal skin, and to make recommendations for the prevention and care of the most common neonatal skin injuries seen in infants exhibiting NAS.
