Newborn Admission Temperature
The goal of the project is to implement evidence-based guidelines to increase the proportion of newborn infants with admission temperatures within normal limits. The broader goal is increase newborn health care quality and patient safety. The initiative is supported through the Regional Advisory Council (RAC) Perinatal Care Region (PCR) Alliance. Hospital participation in this project will provide additional metrics to inform quality assurance and performance improvement programs to support levels of care designation.
Project Timeline
NAT Project Data
Newborn Admission Temperature Data Dashboard, July 2021 - June 2023
Quarterly Reports
In this brief 6 minutes video, we walk you through each tab of the newborn admission temperature (NAT) data dashboard and how to interpret data while summarizing main take-home points.
Toolkits and Reference Documents
Project Detail
Data/REDCap
REDCap Access: https://redcap.utsystem.edu/redcap/
Data Metrics [For more information regarding data metrics, use the REDCap Data Submission User Guide]
REDCap Data Submission User Guides- [A step-by-step guide to entering data into the REDCap system]
Data Documentation Tool [For hospitals collecting their data manually, this tool and the related user guide can aggregate your admission records for you; the data submitted to TCHMB are aggregated (total) counts]
Immediate postnatal hypothermia is a risk factor for morbidity and mortality in all neonates, including premature neonates. Challenges in thermoregulation persist–especially when caring for the smallest preterm infants–despite readily available evidence-based thermal care recommendations to minimize heat loss immediately after birth. Indeed, hyperthermia is also associated with adverse outcomes.
Reducing variation in neonatal thermal care will diminish the risks with hypo- and hyperthermia exposure-related outcomes in all newborns thus increasing newborn health care quality and patient safety. Reducing variation through the implementation of best practices also helps to reduce health disparities.
Further, the Perinatal Committee of the North Central Texas Trauma Regional Advisory Council conducted a newborn admission temperature project in their region, which showed positive outcomes for all newborns, including term infants. Our goal is expand their project statewide.
TCHMB and the RAC PCR Alliance are working together to establish a statewide collaborative around the Newborn Admission Temperature project. The RAC PCR Alliance will be critical in successful implementation of the project as they will be the liaison that connects TCHMB with every single hospital stakeholder across the state.
Recruitment
We will continue recruiting hospitals for the Newborn Admission Temperature initiative through the end of November 2021. For further information about enrollment, please contact us at TCHMB-NAT@uth.tmc.edu
Leadership
Project Workgroup Lead
Dr. Jonathan Nedrelow, Cook Children's Health Care System
UT System Project Lead
Divya Patel, PhD, UT Health Science Center at Tyler, Affiliate of The University of Texas System
Nearby hospitals may overlap on the above map, zoom-in to your region for more clarity.