The Newborn Admission Temperature (NAT) Project is a TCHMB Quality Improvement project to increase the number of newborn infants with admission temperatures within the normal limits – released hospital-reported data from Oct.-Dec. 2021. The project uses this data to inform hospital quality assurance and performance improvement programs, ultimately affecting positive outcomes for infants who are at risk for illness, disease or death if they do not fall in the normal limits.
From October to November 2021:
3.1% of infants had hypothermia and 5.9% of infants had hyperthermia at admission to the NICU;
0.5% of infants had hypothermia and 3.3 % of infants had hyperthermia at admission to the Mother-Baby Unit;
Very low birthweight infants were significantly more likely to have hypothermia and hyperthermia at NICU admission.
TCHMB continues to work with the RAC Perinatal Care Region (PCR) Alliance in order to connect with every single hospital stakeholder across the state. The current number of enrolled hospitals is 158. It continues to be geographically well-represented across TX. In this reporting period, NAT project covered approximately 58% of annual deliveries in Texas (compared to 51% for the July-September 2021 reporting period).
The summary is available on the NAT project page.