"New Year...New Way" Where Families Begin,
Title: "New Year...New Way" Where Families Begin,
- Describe and measure the benefits of Skin to Skin and how it applies to individual practice.
- Identify the importance of face to face reporting as it relates to patient safety and satisfaction
- Describe the benefits of Rooming In and how to integrate consistantly into practice
"Where Families Begin" is a program being implemented in order for Women and Infants Hospital (WIH) to become Baby Friendly Certified. In moving toward this designation WIH recognized that cultural changes needed to be made. The birth experience and post-partum approach to the care of all obstetric patients needed to be addressed and with this base a three part plan has been developed
Proposed change:
The initiative fell into three easily identifiable areas of change opportunities:
1. Face to Face Reporting: All information regarding the patient and her newborn were to take place in the mother's room with her present. This exchange would provide the mother with valuable information about her and her baby's health. This process allows for improved patient safety by encouraging her to ask questions and correct misinformation.
2. Skin to Skin care: The mother and baby will remain skin to skin throughout the transfer from LDR to the postpartum room and continuing throughout transition. This initiative improves temperature stability, glucose control, pain relief, bonding, and breast feeding success for the infant.
3. Rooming in couplet care: quality of care is enhanced when mothers, partners and newborns are not separated. This allows familes to learn about their new baby while they become more experienced and comfortable with their baby's cues.
Implementation, outcomes and evaluation:
To facilitate this change, weekly meetings were held with all staff on Mother/Baby and LDR areas. Each nurse received re-education and training called "Off to the Best Start" which focused on the three areas of change. Additional lactation education was provided and the staff began their transition to a new model of care.
Our patient satisfaction outcomes, measured by Press Ganey showed a slight improvement once our implementation began and the staff increased their level of competency with the new model. Increasing breast feeding rates is also an initiative of this program and also showed a positive increase.
Implications for nursing practice:
We are incredibly pleased with the enthusiasm of our staff and the ability of so many people to come together to plan, cross train and educate our staff and inform our patients. It was a monumental task, but as a leading maternity hospital in New England, it is important that we are on the cutting edge of care incorporating best practice as our standard of care.
Keywords: Baby-friendly, face-to-face reporting, skin-to-skin, rooming in, patient satisfaction, breast feeding.