Improving Timeliness of Hepatitis B Vaccine Birth Dose Administration

When given within 24 hours of birth, the hepatitis B vaccine is up to 90% effective in preventing perinatal infection. The American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends administration within 24 hours for infants with a birth weight >2 kg, but a national benchmark for compliance with this time frame has not been established. We aimed to increase the monthly average of eligible newborns receiving the vaccine on time from 40% to 80% over a 9-month period.

A series of plan-do-study-act cycles were conducted to improve timeliness of hepatitis B vaccine birth dose administration among newborns in the level 1 nursery at our academic community hospital. Interventions included staff education, nurse-driven consent and vaccine ordering, and earlier initial newborn assessments performed by nursing staff. Our primary outcome was the monthly percentage of newborns receiving the vaccine within 24 hours of birth, and our secondary outcome was the frequency of nonvaccination events. Statistical process control was used to analyze the effectiveness of interventions.

Our mean monthly rate of vaccine administration within the 24-hour time frame increased from 40% to 92%. Predischarge vaccination rate improved from a mean of 13 to 61 cases between infants discharged without vaccination.

Nurse-led interventions, including the ability to obtain consent and incorporation of the vaccine into our nurse-activated admission order set, were significant contributors to improvement in the timeliness of hepatitis B vaccine administration. We propose a mean of 90% compliance with the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations as a benchmark for other institutions.