Safe Passages: Ensuring Quality Transitions From NICU to Ambulatory Care

Infants born prematurely or with complex congenital abnormalities are surviving to discharge in growing numbers and often require significant monitoring and coordination of care in the ambulatory setting. These complicated infants have spent all of their lives in the hospital setting, and are strangers in their own homes. Although the transition of the fragile child from intensive care specialist to the ambulatory care provider begins at hospital discharge, it is incomplete until the child receives appropriate outpatient follow-up with a primary care pediatrician. Over this prolonged time period, the child is especially vulnerable to errors related to breakdowns in care coordination and communication because the responsibility for the patient's care is often not clearly specified. Our team of investigators has recently completed a Health Care Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (HFMEA) of the transition from neonatal intensive care to the ambulatory environment. We will expand upon the Care Transitions Intervention developed by Coleman et al that addressed the problems of older adults who were discharged from hospital to home. In this model, advanced practice nurses, trained as coaches, taught patients and families to coordinate care for themselves, fostering independence. We will include the use of a personal health record, to include specific instructions to recognize and self-manage the most common problems in this population and we will use information technology (IT) to enhance communication with families and with community providers, in particular the primary care provider. Having identified that lack of knowledge and skills on the part of community providers about how to manage these infants as an important risk point, we will add to the Coleman intervention by providing "just-in-time" information to the primary care providers to enhance their knowledge and skill in managing the common problems of neonatal nursery graduates, provided electronically via the Texas Children's Hospital (TCH) clinical decision support program.