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  • Quality Improvement Article
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A quality improvement initiative to reduce the time to initial maternal visit in the neonatal intensive care unit

Journal of Perinatology volume 44, pages 446–451 (2024)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Objective

We aimed to reduce the time interval between an infant’s admission to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and first maternal interaction.

Methods

We identified three key drivers: 1. Collaboration with Labor and Delivery, 2. Education of staff and parents, and 3. Improved documentation of maternal presence. We measured the time interval from NICU admission to the initial maternal presence. We followed length of stay as a balancing measure to assay whether use of remote televisitation impeded efficient parental teaching and delayed discharge.

Results

We reduced the time interval from an average of 19.7 h in February 2020 to 12.3 h in June 2021. We expanded an already existing televisitation program as a surrogate to in-person interaction during COVID-19 pandemic. Televisitation did not affect in-person parental presence or LOS.

Conclusion

Our multidisciplinary efforts resulted in a significantly accelerated time to initial maternal presence and did not prolong LOS.

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Fig. 1: Key driver diagram.
Fig. 2: Time to initial maternal presence in the NICU- X chart.
Fig. 3: Time to initial maternal presence in the NICU- S chart.
Fig. 4: Virtual and in person maternal interactions per month.

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Data availability

After de-identification, individual participant data that underlie the results reported in this paper will be available to researchers who provide a methodologically sound proposal. To gain access, data requestors will need to sign a data access agreement.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Neonatology, Department of Pediatrics, University of Florida College of Medicine- Jacksonville, Jacksonville, FL, USA

    Padma S. Nandula, Josef Cortez, Ashley Aderhold, Matthew Garber, Sanket D. Shah & Mark L. Hudak

  2. Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, MS, USA

    Andrew Buckelew

  3. Carithers Pediatric Group, Jacksonville, FL, USA

    Dillon Snyder

  4. Department of Pediatrics, University of Florida College of Medicine- Jacksonville, Jacksonville, FL, USA

    Tina Smith, Ashley Aderhold & Jennifer Meyers

  5. Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Florida College of Medicine- Jacksonville, Jacksonville, FL, USA

    Ashley Aderhold & L. Kendall Webb

Authors
  1. Padma S. Nandula
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  2. Andrew Buckelew
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  3. Josef Cortez
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  4. Dillon Snyder
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  5. Tina Smith
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  6. Ashley Aderhold
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  7. Jennifer Meyers
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  8. Matthew Garber
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  9. Sanket D. Shah
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  10. L. Kendall Webb
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  11. Mark L. Hudak
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Contributions

PN, JC- conceptualization, implementation, data collection and data analysis. AB, DS, JM, AA, SS- implementation and data collection. TS, KW- conceptualization, information technology support, implementation. MG- conceptualization and data analysis. MH- conceptualization and implementation.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Padma S. Nandula.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nandula, P.S., Buckelew, A., Cortez, J. et al. A quality improvement initiative to reduce the time to initial maternal visit in the neonatal intensive care unit. J Perinatol 44, 446–451 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41372-023-01726-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41372-023-01726-0

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