U.S. News & World Report 2011-12 edition of “Best Children’s Hospitals” ranks neonatology at Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children among the best in the country.
Nemours Neonatology Ranks Among the Best
Newborn Medicine (Neonatology)
A baby who comes into the world facing any kind of medical or surgical challenge needs immediate care provided by a highly skilled team of newborn specialists. The Nemours Neonatology team provides exactly that, in an environment that truly recognizes the important role parents play in the care and healing process of their baby.
Our neonatologists are trained and board-certified in pediatrics and neonatology, and are supported by a team of more than 20 neonatal nurse practitioners, specialty fellows, registered nurses, and other pediatric subspecialists. Together, we’re dedicated to providing state-of-the-art care for newborns with a wide variety of medical and surgical conditions.
Some of the conditions we commonly treat include:
- necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) – inflammation and cell damage in the colon (large bowel) that mostly affects premature babies
- omphalocoele – a birth defect where some of the abdominal organs protrude through the abdominal muscles in a sac outside the body
- gastroschisis – a defect in which a baby's stomach and intestines protrude through an opening at the side of the belly button
- myelomeningocele – better known as spina bifida, a condition in which the spine does not fully close during fetal development
- intestinal atresias – when a portion of the intestine fails to form or is too narrow
- urogenital disorders – any birth defect affecting either the urinary tract or the genitals)
- apnea – brief pauses in breathing that tend to occur in premature infants due to immaturity of the brain’s respiratory center
- respiratory problems related to prematurity
- airway abnormalities
- seizure disorders – due to dysfunction in the brain’s electrical activity
- metabolic disorders – problems involving the complex collection of chemical reactions that take place in the body's cells to convert nutrition into energy
A specialized transport team provides for the safe, urgent transfer of newborns from other hospitals to our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), which is housed in the Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children.
The NICU
Our NICU is a Level III referral center primarily for infants less than 30 days old who require surgery or services from our expert subspecialists. The unit is a collaborative effort of the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children and the Christiana Care Health System (CCHS), and is also supported by the Thomas Jefferson University.
The NICU provides services to ventilator-dependent infants, and has a comprehensive tracheostomy/ventilator teaching program for parents. All types of support services are readily available, including respiratory therapy, pharmacy, occupational and speech therapy, physical therapy, radiology, laboratory services, feeding therapy, hearing assessments, EEG, EKG, and echocardiography, social work, and more.
Completely redesigned in 2008, our NICU is a model of family-centered care. Fourteen single-patient rooms allow for a family’s privacy and comfort as they remain with their baby. The number of infant beds can be expanded to 18 if needed. Amenities include a sofa sleeper, recliner, telephone, data port, and a flat-screen TV. Sound-absorbent flooring and soft lighting also help to provide a calm, restful environment for both the babies and their parents.
Families appreciate these amenities, but what they appreciate even more is our commitment to communication. We work hard to build a strong doctor-parent partnership, and it shows – in both the expert care we deliver to babies, and the support we’re able to give their families.
Zero Central Line Infections in Our Pediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care Units in 2009
For children with illnesses that require longer hospital stays or long-term treatments it’s common to get a central line (a long, thin, flexible tube that’s surgically placed into the larger veins of the neck or groin and travels to a large blood vessel near the heart). Having a central line enables doctors and nurses to draw blood and provide medications to kids for as long as medically necessary—sparing them the fear and stress of repeated needle sticks.
Unfortunately, central line infections can happen if bacteria enter the catheter and get into the child’s bloodstream. Every year catheter-associated bloodstream infections cause added medical costs, illness, and (on rare occasions) death in hospitalized adults and children worldwide.
However, if your child needs a central line the last thing you’re probably thinking about is an infection. At Nemours, we make sure that’s one less worry on your mind. We take every precaution to ensure that our patients don’t get a central line infection. And our efforts are making a real difference in the health and safety of the newborns and children we treat.
We’re One of the Best
When it comes to preventing central line infections in our intensive care units (where children come when they need critical care), at Nemours we’re incredibly proud to say that we’re doing far better than many hospitals nationwide. Here’s a quick look at some of our incredible achievements in keeping central line infections at bay:
- The March 2010 Consumer Reports magazine recognized our pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) at the Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children for having 65% fewer infections than the national average. (Consumer Reports based their information on hospitals’ most recent data, primarily from 2008.)
- Our rate for 2009 was the best in the Philadelphia region and the entire state of Delaware for pediatrics. (Find out more about other hospitals’ rates in Delaware.)
- Both our PICU and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) had no central line infections in all of 2009. That impressive feat comes on the heels of two previous years with infection rates that fell well below the national average, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
About This Graph:
The national average (shown in the dotted blue line) is the CDC’s rate of 2.94 central-line-related bloodstream infections for every 1,000 days that all patients in an intensive care unit had a central line. The solid orange line represents duPont Hospital for Children’s central line infection rate for the previous 4 years. And it shows how much we’ve improved over time. We learned what worked best, put it into daily practice, and now we can say that our central line infection rate is substantially better than the national average.
How We Do It
So how have we kept our central line infection rates so low—even non-existent? It all starts with our participation in a collaborative effort supported by the National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions (NACHRI, for short), which focuses on implementing “best practices” used in the preparation, insertion, and ongoing care of central lines.
“Best practices” in medicine refers to the treatments and processes health care providers use that are proven to really work and to be the most successful for patients—based on evidence from research as well as patient care. In addition, best practices used by health care providers are reliable when used again and again.
When it comes to central lines, best practices dictate that every nurse, physician, and other caregiver who comes into contact with patients’ central lines gets continuing education, coaching, and intervention (as needed) on how to reduce and eliminate blood infections associated with the use of a central line.
We adhere to a detailed checklist that follows crucial steps—like keeping hands, instruments, and the skin around the line area sanitized, as well as removing any unnecessary catheters.
At Nemours we were early adopters of the safe practices for central lines because we saw that it was best for our patients— from the children of all ages in our PICU to our tiniest and most vulnerable patients in our NICU.
Through teamwork and ongoing coordination of our efforts and standards, we do whatever it takes to ensure that kids who need central lines stay free of preventable infections. And that equates to healthier patients—and more satisfied parents. Our goal, in our intensive care units and everywhere else we see patients, is to always treat every child as if they were our own.
Learn More
Get more information about Neonatology at Nemours.
For insights and advice from the Nemours experts at KidsHealth.org see: