The creation of formal planning guidelines for newborn intensive care units (NICUs) first occurred in 1976, when Toward Improving the Outcome of Pregnancy, written by a multidisciplinary committee and published by the March of Dimes, provided a rationale for planning and policy for regionalized perinatal care, as well as suggested details of roles and facility design. Since then, this information has been updated in editions of Guidelines for Perinatal Care,1 published by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). In 1993, Toward Improving the Outcome of Pregnancy2 was revised. The new TIOP reviewed medical and societal changes since the original document and formulated new recommendations in recognition of these developments, particularly the ascendance of managed care systems. The purpose of this committee is to complement the above documents, providing health care professionals, architects, interior designers, state health care facility regulators, and others involved in the planning of NICUs with a comprehensive set of standards based on many years of clinical experience and an evolving scientific database.
With the support of Ross Products Division/Abbott Laboratories, a multidisciplinary team of physicians, nurses, state health planning officials, consultants, and architects reached consensus on these recommendations during a 2-day conference in January 1992. The first edition of these recommended standards was then sent to all members of the AAP Section on Perinatal Pediatrics. Their comments were solicited, and we also sought input from participants at the 1993 Parent Care Conference and at an open, multidisciplinary conference on newborn ICU design held in 1993. The consensus committee then met in November 1993, 1996, 1999 and, most recently, in January 2002, under the auspices of the Physical and Developmental Environment of the High-Risk Infant Project.
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