Coming Together to Save Babies: Our Institution's Quality Improvement Collaborative to Improve Infant Safe Sleep...

Area of Science:

• Pediatrics
• Public Health
• Healthcare Improvement

Background:

• Hospitalized infants often lack safe sleep environments, leading to unsafe practices at home.
• A collaborative initiative aimed to improve infant safe sleep practices and education in a children's hospital and associated clinics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To reduce the county's sleep-related infant death rate.
• To enhance safe sleep practices within a children's hospital setting.
• To increase safe sleep screening and education in clinics and emergency departments.

Main Methods:

• Multidisciplinary safe sleep teams were formed, led by physicians from various hospital departments.
• Standardized data collection on infant sleep environments and practices was implemented.
• Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles were utilized to drive improvements in safe sleep behaviors.

Main Results:

• Significant increases in compliance with safe sleep practices were observed in inpatient and neonatal intensive care units (P < 0.01).
• Screening and education on safe sleep behaviors by emergency department and primary care providers increased significantly (P < 0.01).
• The overall county sleep-related death rate did not significantly decrease during the collaborative period.

Conclusions:

• The collaborative successfully improved adherence to American Academy of Pediatrics-recommended safe sleep practices within the institution.
• A reduction in sleep-related deaths was noted within the primary care network.
• Continued and expanded efforts are necessary, both internally and externally, to decrease the community's sleep-related infant mortality rate.