The Impatient Baby: Implementation of An Early Arrival Care Package Protocol on the Mother/Infant Unit

Purpose for the program: Late preterm infants are more at risk for health issues than term infants.  We created our Early Arrival Care Package to improve neonatal outcomes of late preterm infants by identifying, clarifying, and consistently meeting the special needs of our early arrivals. 

Proposed change: Identify late preterm infants and organize their care to meet their special needs in a consistent manner to promote infant safety.

Implementation, outcomes and evaluation: Our Clinical Excellence Committee meets monthly to identify opportunities to improve patient care.  We discussed our current practice with our late preterm infants.  We noted a problem with lack of guidelines for the care of our late preterm infants.  We reviewed the literature and developed a packet.  The packet includes educational material for patients, a checklist for nursing staff to ensure consistent care, and identifiers for cribs to promote awareness for all staff.  We then provided education to our staff through our Annual Skills day learning lab.  We have noted improved patient safety as we involve our patients and their families in their plan of care per Joint Commission recommendation.  We also anticipate increased RN compliance with early arrival protocols as evidenced by chart audits.

Implications for nursing practice: To consistently meet the special needs of our late preterm infants, we will need to allow more time for infant monitoring, feedings, and patient education.  This will affect the nurse/patient ratios and assignments.  We will also need to structure our care to promote as much skin to skin care as possible with both mom and dad.

Keywords:

late preterm infant