A New NICU Space for SCH
As most of you know, I (Michelle) am the head of our pediatric unit and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Neonatal care is separated into the normal babies who may need a few days of breathing support or antibiotics but are otherwise stable, and the high acuity babies who are often suffering from many complications of prematurity and need a high level of cares for weeks or months. We have put a lot of resources into making the best space we could to care for these fragile babies in a safe manner. We have had many many sweet "wins" sending home healthy babies, but we also see death regularly. This has been a especially difficult year in our NICU. Starting in November we started to have a significant increase in our neonatal admission rates and also our neonatal deaths, especially the babies in our acute care room. After much investigation and consultation, we concluded that we have been having an outbreak of hospital acquired infections. By God’s perfect timing, one of ou...