AngelEye understands the value family-centered care brings to the NICU. Our HIPAA-compliant tele-engagement platform integrates parents simply and seamlessly into the child’s care team. We deliver proven, positive impact on the family experience, care delivery workflows, and patient outcomes supporting a successful transition home. Our solutions support the specialized needs of the NICU and make a measurable impact on the Quad Aim.
Balancing closeness and separation was the major theme. Both parents and nurses engaged in actions to optimize closeness.Findings point to actions that nurses undertake to promote closeness and help parents cope with separation including: promoting parent decision-making, organizing care to facilitate closeness, and supporting parent caregiving. Read the article.
Parent education best practices identified through this initiative can be utilized for future NFS Core Curriculum topics and potentially generalized to all NICU parent education and family education in other hospital intensive care units. Read the article.
Mother’s own milk (MOM) is the preferred nutrition for premature infants, particularly for the very low birth-weight (VLBW) cohort. Benefits are well documented; yet, numerous barriers exist for provision of MOM in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Lactation consultants (LCs) can optimize breastfeeding support for NICU mothers. Read the article.
Interventions and new models of care improving communication with healthcare professionals, involving parents in infant care as early as possible, increasing staff support to help parents cope better, and optimizing the management of discharge need to be implemented into practice. Read the article.
Communication between parents and NICU staff is an essential part of the support offered to the parents and can reduce their emotional stress. Attentive communication gives the parents relief in their trying circumstances. In contrast, lack of communication contributes to feelings of loneliness, abandonment and unwanted responsibility, which adds to the burden of an already difficult situation. Read the article.
Apparently, early educational and emotional support for parents of preterm infants decreased their stress. Similar interventions may thus be effective in empowering parents for caring of their infant and playing their parental role. Read the article.
Views on the technology were overwhelmingly positive. It was perceived as a much needed and important advancement in care delivery. Benefits centered on: enhanced feelings of closeness and responsiveness; emotional wellbeing; physical recovery; and the involvement of family/friends. These benefits appeared to function as important mechanisms in supporting the early bonding process and wider transition to parenthood. Read the article.
Neonatal intensive care units with better work environments, better educated nurses, and more infants who receive breastfeeding support by nurses have higher rates of very low birth weight infants discharged home on human milk. Investments by nurse administrators to improve work environments and support educational preparation of nursing staff may ensure that the most vulnerable infants have the best nutrition at the point of discharge. Read the article.
Integration of a web-camera into the NICU environment provides benefits to health care providers and rural patients alike. Web-camera technology allows infants and their families a unique opportunity to connect with their hospitalized infants through interactive, real-time technologies. Thus, a cost-efficient NICU webcam program has the potential to improve quality of life for participating families by relieving anxiety and cultivating a distant bonding experience. The web-camera technology can aid in the mother’s reassurance and shared interaction between family members, but on the contrast, it can also increase the mother’s worry. Worry increases if the mother and other family members are not educated regarding the technology and policies prior to use.18 To decrease the worry related to the web-camera system, a systematic enrollment, education, and technical support system should be in place upon implementation of the program. Read the article.
Unrestricted access to the infant favors the MIB process.15 Virtual visitation provides this access in an easily accessible fashion. Mothers also report increased feelings of closeness when pumping breast milk near their infant.20 For the mother who cannot be physically present to pump breast milk at her infant’s bedside, viewing the infant via VV may provide an adequate substitute. Virtual visitation enhances the feelings of connectivity and closeness for parents who had few means to be physically present with their infant.5 Parents also reported reduced stress and enhanced satisfaction with 24/7 remote access to their hospitalized infant. Read the article.
Parent education best practices identified through this initiative can be utilized for future NFS Core Curriculum topics and potentially generalized to all NICU parent education and family education in other hospital intensive care units. Read the article.
Separation of mother and neonate in the hours immediately following birth interrupts the bonding process and can have long-term implications for the mother–child relationship. Even at a distance, mothers need to be involved in caregiving, to assume a decision-making role, and to continue a connection with their infant. Read the article.
Educating NICU families during their child’s hospitalization and prior to hospital discharge is an integral task for staff from the moment an infant is admitted to the unit. Staff has the responsibility of providing parents with a myriad of education regarding the intensive care environment and information concerning their child’s medical condition.Although sharing medical information and basic newborn care education is vital to ensure the safety of infants after leaving the hospital, equally or more importantly is the goal of empowering parents to participate in an intentional self-care program that will further ensure positive long-term physical, mental, and behavioral outcomes of the premature or ill infant. Read the article.
Various technologies were used, including videoconferencing, videophone, and commercially available modalities such as Skype, FaceTime, AngelEye, and NICView WebcamsOverall, parents and health care providers perceived the varied interventions quite favorably, although a few significant differences were found for the objective measures. Read the article.
Both parents and healthcare professionals found video recording useful and acceptable if measures were taken to protect the data and mitigate any negative impacts on healthcare professionals. Read the article.
On the basis of the present results, health care professionals should target their efforts to optimize breastfeeding support for mothers of premature infants admitted to level III care, especially by improving breast milk production and endorsing direct breastfeeding. Read the article.
We used process mapping to standardize the discharge process for children requiring chronic ventilation. Interventions included developing education materials, a Chronic Ventilation Road Map for caregivers, utilization of the electronic medical record to track discharge readiness, team-based care coordination, and timely case management to arrange home nursing. Although LOS remained high, a standardized discharge process for chronically ventilated children by an interdisciplinary Ventilator Care Program team resulted in decreased LOS and costs without a negative impact on patient safety. As compared with the preintervention cohort, the overall LOS decreased 42%. Read the article.
Telemedicine may have the ability to reduce avoidable transfers by allowing remote specialists the opportunity to more effectively assess patients during consultations.Patient consultations conducted using telemedicine were significantly less likely to result in a transfer than patient consultations conducted using the telephone (64.0% vs 82.0%, P = .001). Read the article.
The separation of the mother-infant pair during the immediate postpartum period has been shown to impair the initiation and sustenance of breastfeeding. Virtual mother-infant bonding with mobile-assisted technology helps to connect COVID-19-infected mothers with newborn infants remotely and enables mobile lactation. Techniques offering telelactation could play a supplementary role during the COVID-19 pandemic and potentially hasten the emotional recovery of mothers separated from their infants during the postnatal period by playing an important role in breast milk initiation and sustenance. Read the article.
Research has demonstrated that breast milk significantly decreases morbidities that impact length of stay for preterm infants, but there is a need to test interventions to improve breastfeeding outcomes. Since many Americans are using technologies such as the Intranet and smartphones to find health information and manage health, a Web site was developed for mothers who provide breast milk for their preterm hospitalized infantsNICU and TCU staffs need to examine and establish approaches to actively involve mothers in monitoring the establishment and maintenance of an adequate supply of breast milk to improve neonatal health outcomes. Read the article.
Neonatal intensive care units with better work environments, better educated nurses, and more infants who receive breastfeeding support by nurses have higher rates of very low birth weight infants discharged home on human milk. Investments by nurse administrators to improve work environments and support educational preparation of nursing staff may ensure that the most vulnerable infants have the best nutrition at the point of discharge. Read the article.
Mothers in the Creating Opportunities for Parent Empowerment program reported significantly less stress in the NICU and less depression and anxiety at 2 months’ corrected infant age than did comparison mothers. Infants in the Creating Opportunities for Parent Empowerment program had a 3.8-day shorter NICU length of stay (mean: 31.86 vs 35.63 days) and 3.9-day shorter total hospital length of stay.A reproducible educational-behavioral intervention program for parents that commences early in the NICU can improve parent mental health outcomes, enhance parent-infant interaction, and reduce hospital length of stay. Read the article.
However, families often found hope and resilience in peer support and cited that in addition to information needs, interventions using mobile health technology and transition and financial systems could better support families after discharge. Read the article.
The findings suggest that a guided participation discharge intervention could improve parenting competence and stress among mothers with very preterm infants. Read the article.
Research has demonstrated that breast milk significantly decreases morbidities that impact length of stay for preterm infants, but there is a need to test interventions to improve breastfeeding outcomes. Since many Americans are using technologies such as the Intranet and smartphones to find health information and manage health, a Web site was developed for mothers who provide breast milk for their preterm hospitalized infantsNICU and TCU staffs need to examine and establish approaches to actively involve mothers in monitoring the establishment and maintenance of an adequate supply of breast milk to improve neonatal health outcomes. Read the article.
Interventions and new models of care improving communication with healthcare professionals, involving parents in infant care as early as possible, increasing staff support to help parents cope better, and optimizing the management of discharge need to be implemented into practice. Read the article.
Families who are expecting a baby have preconceived thoughts about the birth and future of their child. For NICU parents, fantasies fade and plans start to unravel as they find themselves dealing with fear and uncertainty. Parents try to cope but are often unprepared for this experience. Parents in the NICU can feel overwhelmed and experience hopelessness and despair. “Establishing strong, trusting, therapeutic relationships is essential if nurses are to provide effective family-centered care to infants and their families.”13 A trusting relationship between families and the health care team is essential for reducing parental stress. Read the article.
Communication between parents and NICU staff is an essential part of the support offered to the parents and can reduce their emotional stress. Attentive communication gives the parents relief in their trying circumstances. In contrast, lack of communication contributes to feelings of loneliness, abandonment and unwanted responsibility, which adds to the burden of an already difficult situation. Read the article.
To investigate how product design can be used to improve parent–infant bonding in a neonatal intensive care unit.Impaired parent–infant bonding is an inevitable consequence of premature birth, which negatively influences development. Products, systems, or services that support the bonding process might counter these negative influences.All parents indicated that they would like to use a design to enhance bonding if that would contribute to their child’s health and development. Read the article.
Parents of preterm infants increasingly use their mobile phone to search for health information. In a recent review, websites targeted toward parents with infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) were found to have poor to moderate quality educational material.The apps currently available for NICU parents are lacking and of concern in terms of quality and credibility. Read the article.
While participants expressed the need for personalised information, they also requested practical guidance at appropriate times in accessible formats. The encouragement from staff to keep diaries and record the patient’s journey was very valued and helped recall and share progress in difficult and challenging situations. Support and coordination of care when leaving critical care and the hospital also requires planning and communication with the patient, their family and carers and relevant health care teams. Read the article.
During family centered rounds in our NICU, only one parent (usually the mother) was able to be present. At that time, multiple fathers had expressed the disappointment and frustration at not being able to be present during the morning rounds. We utilized a teleconferencing platform to involve the fathers in the morning rounds. A video teleconferencing platform can be offered to the working fathers to stay connected and involved in the care of their infants. This may improve satisfaction and reduce stress in fathers who are often not able to get involved to the extent they would like. Read the article.