Quality initiatives can reduce harm to newborns, shorten hospital stay and save millions
A quality-improvement initiative by Children's National Health System's neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) finds that these chest X-rays can be performed just twice weekly, lessening the chances of a breathing tube popping out accidentally, reducing infants' exposure to radiation and saving an estimated $1.6 million per year. "The new Children's National protocol reduced the rate of chest X-rays per patient day without increasing the rate of unintended extubations," says Michelande Ridoré, M.S., program lead in Children's division of neonatology, who presented the research during the 2017 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) national conference. "That not only helps to improve patient safety -- for newborns who are admitted to the NICU for longer periods, there is the additional benefit of providing significant savings to the health care system." Children's NICU staff assessed how many chest X-rays were being performed per patient day ...