BACKGROUND: After the implementation of narrowed oxygen saturation alarms, alarm frequency increased in the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital NICU which could have a negative impact on patient safety. The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations issued a Sentinel Event Alert for hospitals in 2013 to improve alarm safety, resulting in a 2014 National Patient Safety Goal requiring institutional policies and procedures to be in place to manage alarms.METHODS: A multidisciplinary improvement team developed an alarm management bundle applying strategies to decrease alarm frequency, which included evaluating existing strategies and developing patient care-based and systems-based interventions. The total number of delivered and detected saturation alarms and high saturation alarms and the total time spent within a targeted saturation range were quantitatively tracked. Nursing morale was assessed qualitatively.RESULTS: SpO 2 alarms per monitored patient-day increased from 78 to 105 after the narrowing of alarm limits. Modification of the high saturation alarm algorithm substantially decreased the delivery and escalation of high pulse oxygen saturation (SpO 2 ) alarms. During a pilot period, using histogram technology to individually customize alarm limits resulted in increased time spent within the targeted saturation range and fewer alarms per day. Qualitatively, nurses reported improved satisfaction when not assigned

The Neonatal Pain, Agitation, and Sedation Scale (N-PASS) is recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics to measure neonatal pain and sedation. However, little is known regarding its reliability and validity for diverse neonatal subpopulations. Twenty-nine studies were included in our review, demonstrating broad application of N-PASS and good or excellent reliability and validity for various neonatal subpopulations. Our systematic review found N-PASS to be valid and reliable for many but not all neonatal subpopulations. There is a lack of support for N-PASS reliability and validity for measuring prolonged pain and sedation in nonmechanically ventilated infants and for acute pain in postoperative infants in any gestational age category. Overall, N-PASS is a psychometrically sound and pragmatic instrument evaluating pain and sedation for most neonatal populations. Future research using N-PASS is encouraged to evaluate and report its validity and reliability, especially for neonatal subpopulations not included in this review.

Background: Few studies address preparing parents of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) infants for infant discharge. Inadequate or ineffective parental preparedness for discharge can result in preventable emergency department and primary care visits. Parents' perceptions are needed to inform development and implementation of effective educational tools to improve parent discharge preparedness in the NICU. Purpose: To describe the perceptions of parents of recently discharged NICU infants regarding discharge preparedness and implementation of the My Flight Plan for Home parent discharge preparedness tool. Methods: We used a qualitative descriptive design to collect individual interview data from 15 parents with infants discharged from a level 4 NICU in the Midwest. Individual interviews were conducted using a semistructured guide and were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and thematically analyzed using the constant comparative method. Results: We identified 5 major themes: (1) family dynamics; (2) parenting in the NICU; (3) discharge preparedness; (4) engaging parents in infant care; and (5) implementation recommendations for the My Flight Plan for Home tool. Minor themes supported each of the major themes. Implications for Practice: To improve parents' confidence in caring for their infant after discharge, parents suggest nurses must engage parents in discharge education and infant care shortly following NICU admission and use parentcentered discharge preparedness tools. Implications for Research: Future studies are needed to develop and test parent-tailored strategies for implementing parent discharge preparedness tools in the NICU.

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