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Monday, June 23, 2008
Petree C (LA Convention Center)
Premier Care for Neonates Discharged from a Community Based Hospital
After reviewing this poster, the participant will be able to:
The purpose of this program is to provide nursing staff skilled in drawing blood from the neonate in order to decrease the total number of blood draw attempts, decrease the number of unsuccessful attempts and initiate medical intervention in a timely manner. Background
Neonates are typically discharged within 2 to 3 days of life. This poses a challenge with the population of neonates who become jaundiced as well as with the Near Term population. Both of these groups are at risk for hyperbilirubinemia and feeding difficulties post discharge. As a result, both populations frequently need outpatient bilirubin monitoring. An often encountered scenario would have infants seen at an outpatient drawing station where phlebotomists, unskilled in techniques for drawing blood on a newborn would make multiple attempts and frequently fail to obtain a quality specimen. This left parents frustrated and also delayed needed medical intervention. The NICU nurse would be called as a “last resort” and would frequently find hysterical parents distressed over the number of blood drawing attempts their newborn had required.
After reviewing this poster, the participant will be able to:
- Describe the challenges inherent in obtaining adequate blood specimens from a Neonate.
- Identify the benefits of the NICU blood drawing program in providing timely medical interventions.
- Discuss the family, provider and nursing staff satisfaction with the program
The purpose of this program is to provide nursing staff skilled in drawing blood from the neonate in order to decrease the total number of blood draw attempts, decrease the number of unsuccessful attempts and initiate medical intervention in a timely manner. Background
Neonates are typically discharged within 2 to 3 days of life. This poses a challenge with the population of neonates who become jaundiced as well as with the Near Term population. Both of these groups are at risk for hyperbilirubinemia and feeding difficulties post discharge. As a result, both populations frequently need outpatient bilirubin monitoring. An often encountered scenario would have infants seen at an outpatient drawing station where phlebotomists, unskilled in techniques for drawing blood on a newborn would make multiple attempts and frequently fail to obtain a quality specimen. This left parents frustrated and also delayed needed medical intervention. The NICU nurse would be called as a “last resort” and would frequently find hysterical parents distressed over the number of blood drawing attempts their newborn had required.
The NICU nursing staff worked with the community Pediatricians and developed a system to provide experienced NICU nursing staff as the first line phlebotomy staff for infants requiring any blood specimens. This service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and has the added benefit of parent education by experienced NICU nurses.
Evaluation and Outcomes
Outcomes of this project were developed by looking at several components: Physician satisfaction, family satisfaction, number of blood drawing attempts, number of unsuccessful attempts and timeliness of medical interventions.
Conclusions
Conclusions will be based on evaluation of the first three months of outcome data and analysis of the parent follow-up survey.
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