Grant: Project Grant

Every year in Canada 1 in 12 infants is born preterm, before 37 weeks of pregnancy. Of these preterm infants 85% are born between 32 and 36 weeks of pregnancy. Infants born before 32 weeks are at the highest risk of death or complications from prematurity. This has resulted in a significant amount of research and quality improvement initiatives focusing on improving outcomes for this patient group. On the other hand there is very limited research or quality improvement activities focusing on infants 32-36 weeks. This group composes a larger proportion of infants admitted to Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). These infants require intensive care for temperature control, nutrition support, breathing support, and infection management. Information available on infants 32-36 weeks demonstrates significant variability between units in treatment approaches and length of stay. Our diverse research team aims to implement collaborative quality improvement strategies in a step-wise fashion targeting standardization of care for 32-36 week infants in Level 2 NICUs across the province of Alberta. This will be achieved by using validated quality improvement method and evidence based care bundles. These bundles will target two common issues, breathing support and nutrition support. Once trained, NICUs will benefit from collaborative networking to share information and maintain engagement. Decreasing duration of hospital stay and getting the babies home as quickly as possible is the primary objective of the study. Other objectives include reducing healthcare costs, reducing duration of breathing support, supporting infant feeding, and reducing transfer to higher level of care and emergency room visits. This study will provide evidence of the benefit of collaborative QI strategies in infants born at 32-36 weeks. This will help policy makers and government agencies in directing resources to support collaborative quality improvement in this patient group across Canada.