Paediatric family activation rapid response (FARR) in tertiary healthcare organisations: Protocol for an online, multi-lingual, application (app) intervention development study.

INTRODUCTION: At least 85% of unplanned admissions to critical care wards for children and young people (CYP) are associated with clinical deterioration. CYP and their families play an integral role in the recognition of deterioration. The Paediatric Critical Care Outreach Team (PCCOT) supports the reduction of avoidable harm through earlier recognition and treatment of the deteriorating child, acting as a welcome conduit between the multiprofessional teams, helping ensure that CYP gets the right care, at the right time and in the right place. This positions PCCOT well to respond to families who call for help as part of family activation. AIM: This protocol details the methods and process of developing a family activation rapid response online application. METHODS: This is a single-centre, sequential, multiple methods study design. Firstly, a systematic review of the international literature on rapid response interventions in paediatric family activation was conducted. Findings from the review aimed to inform the content for next stages; interviews/ focus groups and experience-based co-design (EBCD) workshops. PARTICIPANTS: parents / caregivers whose children have been discharged or admitted to an acute care hospital and healthcare professionals who care for paediatric patients (CYP). During interviews and workshops participants' opinion, views and input will be sort on designing a family activation rapid response online-app, detailing content, aesthetics, broad functionality and multi-lingual aspects. Further areas of discussions include; who will use the app, access, appropriate language and terminology for use. A suitable app development company will be identified and will be part of the stakeholders present at workshops. Data obtained will be used to develop a multi-lingual paediatric family activation rapid response web based application prototype. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Full ethical approval was received from the Wales Research Ethics Committee 2. Cardiff; REC reference: 22/WA/0174. The findings will be made available to all stakeholders.

Pediatric nurse-sensitive outcomes: A systematic review of international literature.

BACKGROUND: Nurse-sensitive outcomes are measures for improvement and evaluation of the quality of nursing care delivered. The specific outcomes that need to be measured will be determined by the patient population, as well as the field and scope of practice, in which nursing care is being delivered. Currently, there is no internationally agreed upon set of nurse-sensitive outcomes for pediatric nursing, which provides specialist care to infants, children, and young people. AIM: To identify and evaluate nurse-sensitive outcomes for pediatric nursing. METHODS: A systematic review was conducted. Five electronic databases (British Nursing Index, CINAHL, EMBASE, MEDLINE, and EMCARE) were searched in the period up to February 2022. Studies were selected for inclusion using title and abstract screening using predetermined criteria. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme tool was used for quality assessment. A narrative synthesis of the results was performed. RESULTS: A total of 633 studies were identified from online searches, with 14 studies meeting the inclusion criteria. All studies had moderate to high methodological strength. A total of 57 nurse-sensitive outcomes were identified from all included studies. Using the nurse-sensitive outcome conceptual analysis framework, 25 (45%) of the items were classified as outcome attributes, 20 (35%) as process attributes, and 13 (23%) as structure attributes. The most frequently reported nurse-sensitive outcomes included pressure ulcers, nosocomial infections, hospital-acquired infections, peripheral intravenous infiltration, failure to rescue, and staffing levels. CONCLUSIONS: This review provides an up-to-date and comprehensive list of nurse-sensitive outcomes for use in pediatric nursing and describes their frequency of use. However, further work is required to achieve consensus for an international core nurse-sensitive outcome set for pediatric nursing with policy recommendations to ensure agreed-upon minimum standards. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING AND HEALTH POLICY: Policy initiatives and guideline recommendations on nurse-sensitive outcome frameworks as part of patient safety should be a part of key priorities for policy makers. The commonly reported nurse-sensitive outcomes should be incorporated into daily bedside pediatric clinical nursing practice as a mechanism to evaluate and improve the quality of care, enhancement of patient safety, and better outcomes.

Continuing professional development in children's nursing: identifying needs and delivering quality assured activities.

Continuing professional development (CPD) for nurses is intrinsically linked to quality improvement, improved patient safety and outcomes, career progression, and recruitment and retention, as well as being integral to nurses' lifelong development. However, despite these advantages, there is no framework to develop, accredit, deliver and measure the outcomes of CPD in the UK. This article outlines the elements of a CPD framework for excellence for children's nurses that was developed by the lead for excellence in nursing practice at Nottingham Children's Hospital, England, in collaboration with lead educators and facilitators of CPD activities. To develop the framework, they scoped existing CPD activities and mapped the content to a quality standards framework. Each of the 39 CPD activities identified were then submitted to the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust Institute of Care Excellence for accreditation, with the aim of providing quality assurance. The framework for excellence aims to support the delivery of credentialed high-quality, evidence-based information that meets the needs of children's nurses, with the future capability to measure learning outcomes.

Engaging nurses to achieve a culture of excellence: a children's hospital journey towards Pathway to Excellence accreditation.

High-quality nursing care is linked to improved patient experience and patient outcomes, so having work environments that nurture a culture of nursing excellence is fundamental to delivering high-quality patient care. The American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) runs the Pathway to Excellence programme, an international accreditation recognising healthcare organisations that provide nurses with a positive and safe practice environment in which they can excel. In 2020, Nottingham Children's Hospital became the first children's hospital in Europe to gain Pathway to Excellence accreditation, demonstrating that it has developed a culture of nursing excellence and a positive environment for nurses to work in. This article describes the hospital's journey towards accreditation. Crucial to its success were strategic planning, transformational leadership and using a change management approach, as well as effective staff engagement guided by the ADKAR model for change, an acronym representing five individual outcomes in terms of awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement.

Pressure injury and risk in the inpatient paediatric and neonatal populations: A single centre point-prevalence study.

INTRODUCTION: Prevention and management of pressure injury is a key nurse-sensitive quality indicator. From clinical insights, pressure injury effects hospitalised neonates and children, however it is unclear how prevalent this is. The aim of this study was to quantify prevalence of pressure injury, assess skin integrity risk level, and quantify preventive interventions in both neonatal and child inpatient populations at a large children's hospital in the UK. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was undertaken, assessing the skin integrity of all children allocated to a paediatric or neonatal bed in June/July 2020. A data collection tool was adapted from two established pressure ulcer point prevalence surveys (EUPAP and Medstrom pre-prevalence survey). Risk assessment was performed using the Braden QD scale. RESULTS: Eighty-eight participants were included, with median age of 0.85 years [range 0-17.5 years), with 32 (36%) of participants being preterm. Median length of hospital stay was 11 days [range 0-174 days]. Pressure ulcer prevalence was 3.4%. The majority of participants had at least two medical devices, with 16 (18.2%) having more than four. Having a medical device was associated with increased risk score of developing pressure injury (odds ratio [OR] 0.03, 95% Confidence Interval [CI] 0.01-0.05, p = 0.02). Most children (39 (44%)) were reported not having proposed preventive measures in place aligned to their risk assessment. However, for those that did, 2 to 4 hourly repositioning was associated with a risk reduction on pressure damage (OR 0.13, 95% CI 0.03-0.23, p = 0.01). CONCLUSION: Overall, we found a low prevalence of pressure injury across preterm infants, children and young people at a tertiary children's hospital. Accurate risk assessment as well as availability and implementation of preventive interventions are a priority for healthcare institutes to avoid pressure injury.

Engaging nurses to achieve a culture of excellence: a children's hospital journey towards Pathway to Excellence accreditation.

High-quality nursing care is linked to improved patient experience and patient outcomes, so having work environments that nurture a culture of nursing excellence is fundamental to delivering high-quality patient care. The American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) runs the Pathway to Excellence programme, an international accreditation recognising healthcare organisations that provide nurses with a positive and safe practice environment in which they can excel. In 2020, Nottingham Children's Hospital became the first children's hospital in Europe to gain Pathway to Excellence accreditation, demonstrating that it has developed a culture of nursing excellence and a positive environment for nurses to work in. This article describes the hospital's journey towards accreditation. Crucial to its success were strategic planning, transformational leadership and using a change management approach, as well as effective staff engagement guided by the ADKAR model for change, an acronym representing five individual outcomes in terms of awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement.

Enhanced notch signaling modulates unproductive revascularization in response to nitric oxide-angiopoietin signaling in a mouse model of peripheral ischemia.

INTRODUCTION: Arteriolargenesis can be induced by concomitant stimulation of nitric Oxide (NO)-Angiopoietin receptor (Tie)-Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) signaling in the rat mesentery angiogenesis assay. We hypothesized that the same combination of exogenously added growth factors would also have a positive impact on arteriolargenesis and, consequently, the recovery of blood flow in a model of unilateral hindlimb ischemia. RESULTS AND METHODS: NO-Tie mice had faster blood flow recovery compared to control mice, as assessed by laser speckle imaging. There was no change in capillary density within the ischemic muscles, but arteriole density was higher in NO-Tie mice. Given the previously documented beneficial effect of VEGF signaling, we tested whether NO-Tie-VEGF mice would show further improvement. Surprisingly, these mice recovered no differently from control, arteriole density was similar and capillary density was lower. Dll4 is a driver of arterial specification, so we hypothesized that Notch1 expression would be involved in arteriolargenesis. There was a significant upregulation of Notch1 transcripts in NO-Tie-VEGF compared with NO-Tie mice. Using soluble Dll4 (sDll4), we stimulated Notch signaling in the ischemic muscles of mice. NO-Tie-sDll4 mice had significantly increased capillary and arteriole densities, but impaired blood flow recovery. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that Dll4 activation early on in revascularization can lead to unproductive angiogenesis and arteriolargenesis, despite increased vascular densities. These results suggest spatial and temporal balance of growth factors needs to be perfected for ideal functional and anatomical revascularisation.

Activation of Notch signaling by soluble Dll4 decreases vascular permeability via a cAMP/PKA-dependent pathway.

The Notch ligand delta-like ligand 4 (Dll4), upregulated by VEGF, is a key regulator of vessel morphogenesis and function, controlling tip and stalk cell selection during sprouting angiogenesis. Inhibition of Dll4 results in hypersprouting, nonfunctional, poorly perfused vessels, suggesting a role for Dll4 in the formation of mature, reactive, functional vessels, with low permeability and able to restrict fluid and solute exchange. We tested the hypothesis that Dll4 controls transvascular fluid exchange. A recombinant protein expressing only the extracellular portion of Dll4 [soluble Dll4 (sDll4)] induced Notch signaling in endothelial cells (ECs), resulting in increased expression of vascular-endothelial cadherin, but not the tight junctional protein zonula occludens 1, at intercellular junctions. sDll4 decreased the permeability of FITC-labeled albumin across EC monolayers, and this effect was abrogated by coculture with the γ-secretase inhibitor N-[N-(3,5-difluorophenacetyl)-l-alanyl]-S-phenylglycine t-butyl ester. One of the known molecular effectors responsible for strengthening EC-EC contacts is PKA, so we tested the effect of modulation of PKA on the sDll4-mediated reduction of permeability. Inhibition of PKA reversed the sDll4-mediated reduction in permeability and reduced expression of the Notch target gene Hey1. Knockdown of PKA reduced sDLL4-mediated vascular-endothelial cadherin junctional expression. sDll4 also caused a significant decrease in the hydraulic conductivity of rat mesenteric microvessels in vivo. This reduction was abolished upon coperfusion with the PKA inhibitor H89 dihydrochloride. These results indicate that Dll4 signaling through Notch activation acts through a cAMP/PKA pathway upon intercellular adherens junctions, but not tight junctions, to regulate endothelial barrier function. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Notch signaling reduces vascular permeability through stimulation of cAMP-dependent protein kinase A.