Neonatal Nurses NICU Quality Improvement: Embracing EBP Recommendations to Provide Parent Psychosocial Support

Development and effectiveness of an educational program on developmental positioning for neonatal intensive care unit nurses in South Korea: a quasi-experimental study

Purpose

This study aimed to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of an educational program on developmental positioning (EPDP) for nurses in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs).

Methods

The study utilized a non-equivalent control group pretestposttest design. Sixty NICU nurses were recruited from two university hospitals in Daejeon, South Korea. The EPDP consisted of a 7-week program: 3 weeks of education and practice, followed by 4 weeks of encouragement messages using social networking services. Developmental positioning (DP) posters and DP aids were also provided during the intervention period. The intervention group (n=30) received the EPDP, but not the control group. The data were analyzed using the x² test, the Fisher exact test, the independent t-test, and repeated-measures analysis of variance.

Results

Participants' knowledge (t=7.49, p<.001), attitudes (t=1.99, p=.001), self-efficacy (t=2.99, p=.004), performance of DP (t=2.98, p=.004) and Infant Positioning Assessment Tool (IPAT) scores (F=29.50, p<.001) were significantly higher in the intervention group than in the control group.

Conclusion

The EPDP can be an effective and useful program for improving the performance of DP among NICU nurses by increasing their knowledge, attitudes, and self-efficacy of DP. However, further research involving various NICU settings is needed to gather more empirical evidence.

Association between professional qualification and adverse events in neonatal and pediatric intensive treatment units

OBJECTIVE

to verify the association between the qualification of nursing professionals and the occurrence of adverse events in neonatal and pediatric intensive care units.

METHOD

Cross-sectional and evaluation study conducted in six intensive care units of five public hospitals in the state of Paraná, Brazil. Data was collected from April/2017 to January/2018 through the use of a questionnaire to be completed by 143 nursing professionals and retrospective analysis of 79 medical records using the Neonatal Trigger Tool and Pediatric Trigger Tool instruments. The prognostic factors were professional training and the existence, or not, of a continuing education service; analysis was performed by logistic regression.

RESULTS

Detected 30 adverse events in 22 medical records analyzed. There was a prevalence of infection (n = 12; 40%) and skin damage (n = 9; 30%). Among the prognostic factors, continuing education was identified as a protective factor against adverse events (p≤0.05).

CONCLUSION

Continuing education was associated with the prevention of adverse events in neonatal and pediatric intensive care units.

Assessing Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Structures and Outcomes Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Network Analysis Study

Background

Health care organizations (HCOs) adopt strategies (eg. physical distancing) to protect clinicians and patients in intensive care units (ICUs) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many care activities physically performed before the COVID-19 pandemic have transitioned to virtual systems during the pandemic. These transitions can interfere with collaboration structures in the ICU, which may impact clinical outcomes. Understanding the differences can help HCOs identify challenges when transitioning physical collaboration to the virtual setting in the post–COVID-19 era.

Objective

This study aims to leverage network analysis to determine the changes in neonatal ICU (NICU) collaboration structures from the pre– to the intra–COVID-19 era.

Methods

In this retrospective study, we applied network analysis to the utilization of electronic health records (EHRs) of 712 critically ill neonates (pre–COVID-19, n=386; intra–COVID-19, n=326, excluding those with COVID-19) admitted to the NICU of Vanderbilt University Medical Center between September 1, 2019, and June 30, 2020, to assess collaboration between clinicians. We characterized pre–COVID-19 as the period of September-December 2019 and intra–COVID-19 as the period of March-June 2020. These 2 groups were compared using patients’ clinical characteristics, including age, sex, race, length of stay (LOS), and discharge dispositions. We leveraged the clinicians’ actions committed to the patients’ EHRs to measure clinician-clinician connections. We characterized a collaboration relationship (tie) between 2 clinicians as actioning EHRs of the same patient within the same day. On defining collaboration relationship, we built pre– and intra–COVID-19 networks. We used 3 sociometric measurements, including eigenvector centrality, eccentricity, and betweenness, to quantify a clinician’s leadership, collaboration difficulty, and broad skill sets in a network, respectively. We assessed the extent to which the eigenvector centrality, eccentricity, and betweenness of clinicians in the 2 networks are statistically different, using Mann-Whitney U tests (95% CI).

Results

Collaboration difficulty increased from the pre– to intra–COVID-19 periods (median eccentricity: 3 vs 4; P<.001). Nurses had reduced leadership (median eigenvector centrality: 0.183 vs 0.087; P<.001), and neonatologists with broader skill sets cared for more patients in the NICU structure during the pandemic (median betweenness centrality: 0.0001 vs 0.005; P<.001). The pre– and intra–COVID-19 patient groups shared similar distributions in sex (~0 difference), race (4% difference in White, and 3% difference in African American), LOS (interquartile range difference in 1.5 days), and discharge dispositions (~0 difference in home, 2% difference in expired, and 2% difference in others). There were no significant differences in the patient demographics and outcomes between the 2 groups.

Conclusions

Management of NICU-admitted patients typically requires multidisciplinary care teams. Understanding collaboration structures can provide fine-grained evidence to potentially refine or optimize existing teamwork in the NICU.

Caring for indigenous families in the neonatal intensive care unit

Inequitable access to health care, social inequities, and racist and discriminatory care has resulted in the trend toward poorer health outcomes for Indigenous infants and their families when compared to non-Indigenous families in Canada. How Indigenous mothers experience care during an admission of their infant to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit has implications for future health-seeking behaviors which may influence infant health outcomes. Nurses are well positioned to promote positive health care interactions and improve health outcomes by effectively meeting the needs of Indigenous families. This qualitative study was guided by interpretive description and the Two-Eyed Seeing framework and aimed to understand how Indigenous mothers experience accessing and using the health care system for their infants. Data were collected by way of interviews and a discussion group with self-identifying Indigenous mothers of infants less than two years of age living in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Data underwent thematic analysis, identifying nursing strategies to support positive health care interactions and promote the health and wellness of Indigenous infants and their families. Building relationships, providing holistic care, and taking a trauma-informed approach to the involvement of child protection services are three key strategies that nurses can use to positively impact health care experiences for Indigenous families.