National Health Partnership for Reducing Infections in NICU

Sixteen percent of infants ≤32 weeks gestation admitted to Canadian neonatal intensive care units (NICU) acquire an infection while in the hospital, making nosocomial infections one of the most important causes of mortality, morbidity and resource use in the NICU. Previous efforts by individual NICUs to reduce the incidence of nosocomial infections often were not evidence-based, did not use data from the institutions concerned, and did not yield results that could easily be generalized for use in other NICUs.

Research Summary

Sixteen percent of infants ≤32 weeks gestation admitted to Canadian neonatal intensive care units (NICU) acquire an infection while in the hospital, making nosocomial infections one of the most important causes of mortality, morbidity and resource use in the NICU. Previous efforts by individual NICUs to reduce the incidence of nosocomial infections often were not evidence-based, did not use data from the institutions concerned, and did not yield results that could easily be generalized for use in other NICUs.

To address this problem, Dr Lee and his research team developed the Evidence-based Practice Identification and Change (EPIC) system to improve quality of care, and evaluated EPIC in six Canadian NICUs. EPIC uses evidence in published literature, data from institutions to identify risk factors associated with good or poor outcomes for targeted intervention, and a national network of experts to achieve practice and policy change at the ground level. Preliminary data from the EPIC study demonstrated a 40% reduction in the incidence of nosocomial infection among the six participating NICUs.

This research project will build upon the success of the EPIC study to develop, implement and evaluate an on-going national system for quality improvement in Canadian NICUs, involving researchers, clinicians, and administrators in a collaborative effort.

The team expects that this project will reduce infections in the NICU, establishing an on-going, sustainable national system for collaborative quality improvement and knowledge translation across Canadian NICUs, and be a model for other areas of health care.