Introduction of enterprise risk management in neonatal intensive care unit to reduce breast milk errors

Abstract

Preterm infants born before 34 weeks gestation are unable to feed by mouth. Mothers of these preterm infants are thus asked to pump breast milk to be fed to infants through a nasogastric tube. Each mother's pumped breast milk must be carefully labelled and stored so that it is not fed to the wrong baby during the infants stay in the neonatal intensive care unit, which can range from days to months. All hospitals have strict policies and procedures in place to ensure infants are fed their mother's milk but still occasional errors are reported. We looked at the effect of introducing the enterprise risk management method in preventing breast milk errors in our neonatal intensive care unit.