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PEDIATRICS Vol. 111 No. 4 April 2003, pp. e426-e431

ELECTRONIC ARTICLE

Evaluation and Development of Potentially Better Practices to Prevent Chronic Lung Disease and Reduce Lung Injury in Neonates

Paul J. Sharek, MD, MPH^*, Robin Baker, MD, Fern Litman, MD, Joseph Kaempf, MD, Kelly Burch, PharmD^||, Edward Schwarz, MD^||, Shyan Sun, MD^¶ and Nathaniel R. Payne, MD^#

^* Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, California
Inova Fairfax Hospital for Children, Falls Church, Virginia
Providence St Vincent Medical Center, Portland, Oregon
^|| St John’s Mercy Medical Center, St Louis, Missouri
^¶ St Barnabas Medical Center, Livingston, New Jersey
^# Children’s Hospital and Clinics, Minneapolis, Minnesota

--> Objective. Despite increased knowledge and improving technology, chronic lung disease (CLD) rates in extremely low birth weight infants have remained constant for 20 years. One reason for this is an ineffective translation of research-proven improvements into practice. The Neonatal Intensive Care Quality Improvement Collaborative Year 2000 (NIC/Q 2000) was created to provide participating nurseries the tools necessary to effect change. The objective of this study was to develop and implement a process that uses quality improvement techniques to collaboratively improve CLD rates.

Methods. Nine member hospitals of the NIC/Q 2000 collaborative formed a focus group aiming to decrease CLD rates. The focus group established goals and outcome measures, created a list of potentially better practices (PBPs) based on available literature, benchmarked and performed site visits, encouraged individual site implementation of PBPs, developed a database, and measured outcomes.

Results. The goal "decrease CLD rates in extremely low birth weight infants" was established. Nine PBPs were identified, and 57 PBPs were implemented by the 9 participating sites. Twelve site visits were conducted, and a 435-patient database of infants with a mean birth weight of 789 g was established.

Conclusions. Collaborative use of quality improvement techniques resulted in creation of a logical, efficient, and effective process to improve CLD rates. Group creation of PBPs, based on literature review and reinforced with site visits, internal data analysis, and improved individual site outcomes, resulted in accelerated and effective change, unlikely to occur if attempted outside of the collaborative.

Key Words: collaborative quality improvement • chronic lung disease • extremely low birth weight infants • best practice • NIC/Q 2000

Abbreviations: PBPs, potentially better practices • CLD, chronic lung disease • VON, Vermont Oxford Network • NIC/Q 2000, Neonatal Intensive Care Quality Improvement Collaborative Year 2000 • CAT, critically appraised topic

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Received for publication Aug 13, 2002; Accepted Oct 24, 2002.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				K. Burch, W. Rhine, R. Baker, F. Litman, J. W. Kaempf, E. Schwarz, S. Sun, N. R. Payne, and P. J. Sharek Implementing Potentially Better Practices to Reduce Lung Injury in Neonates Pediatrics, April 1, 2003; 111(4): e432 - 436. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]