Research: Cutting into the NICU: Improvements in Outcomes for Neonates with Surgical Conditions

Neoreviews

. 2024 Oct 1;25(10):e634-e647.

 doi: 10.1542/neo.25-10-e634. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39349417/

Cutting into the NICU: Improvements in Outcomes for Neonates with Surgical Conditions

Stephanie L Bourque 1Karna Murthy 2Theresa R Grover 1Loren Berman 3 4Stefanie Riddle 5

Affiliations Expand

Abstract

The Children’s Hospitals Neonatal Consortium (CHNC), established in 2010, seeks to improve care for infants with medically and surgically complex conditions who are cared for in level IV regional children’s hospital NICUs across North America. Through patient-level individual data collection, comparative benchmarking, and multicenter quality improvement work, CHNC has contributed to knowledge and improved outcomes, leveraging novel collaborations between and across institutions. Focusing on antenatal and inpatient care for infants with surgical conditions including congenital diaphragmatic hernia, gastroschisis, and necrotizing enterocolitis, we summarize the progress made in these infants’ care. We highlight the ways in which CHNC has enabled multidisciplinary and multicenter collaborations through the facilitation of diagnosis-specific focus groups, which enable comparative observations of outcomes through quality improvement and research initiatives. Finally, we review the importance of postbirth hospitalization needs of these infants and the application of telemedicine in this population.

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