Development of a Collaborative Partnership to Improve Communication and Access to Obstetric and Pediatric Patient Care Information for High‐Risk Referrals

Poster PresentationPurpose for the ProgramIn a multihospital, high‐risk obstetric (OB) service with 3600 births annually, coordinating high‐risk consultations and having those consults available for review by more than 150 OB and pediatric providers in a semicomputerized system has presented many challenges. This program was developed to surmount the challenges of identifying high‐risk mothers and newborns, making patient care information available to OB and pediatric providers in a timely manner, and spanning the gaps created by two different health care organizations caring for obstetric and neonatal patients.Proposed ChangeAn interdisciplinary task force of obstetric, pediatric, nursing, and administrative support staff met to discuss the issues related to identifying referred high‐risk newborns, communicating the plan of care and expected delivery dates, and making all consultations regarding mother and fetus available to all providers caring for those patients. These maternal and fetal referrals are generated by the OB and pediatric providers based on criteria that require care at a tertiary obstetric and/or Level‐III neonatal unit. A comprehensive plan was developed to address the gathering of patient care information, such as prenatal records, maternal/fetal medicine ultrasounds, pediatric subspecialty consults, and patient plans of care into one central, computerized document depository. This required obtaining necessary administrative approvals at both heal...
Source: Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, and Neonatal Nursing - Category: Nursing Authors: Tags: Newborn Care Source Type: research