Enhancing Communication and Response for Care of Newborns at Risk of Complications

Paper PresentationPurpose for the ProgramTo outline innovative enhancements to the communication system and processes used by health care providers across departments and disciplines to provide a rapid response and effective care for the compromised or potentially compromised newborn.Proposed ChangeThe previous system for responding to events involving a compromised newborn was an unstructured and informal process that included multiple telephone calls, alerting of nondedicated pagers, and often required business associates to relay critical clinical details. Multiple points of communication opened opportunities for handoff failures, loss of information, and delay in response. The multidisciplinary Perinatal Committee designated this issue for a high‐priority quality improvement project, including leadership from obstetrics (OB), pediatrics, and telecommunications. A collaborative process was used to engage multiple units across the Children's Hospital (newborn special care unit, labor and birth, maternal special care unit, maternity/well newborn, pediatric emergency department [ED], and adult ED). The existing Yale‐New Haven Hospital Emergency155‐page system was engaged and modified to accommodate the newborn response calls. New telephones were designated for newborn emergencies in each delivery room and within key departments, newborn response indicators were revised, and a response escalation system was implemented to ensure notification in the event of delayed newbo...

Source: Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, and Neonatal Nursing - June 4, 2015 Category: Nursing Authors: Katie E. Donohue, Theresa Hyland Tags: Newborn Care Source Type: research