Nursing--Lincoln Campus

 

Date of this Version

2016

Document Type

Article

Citation

Volume 2016, Article ID 9505629, 7 pages

Comments

Copyright Β© 2016 Cindy Weston et al.

Open access

http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/9505629

Abstract

Congenital heart disease is identified as the most common birth defect with single ventricle physiology carrying the highest mortality. Staged surgical palliation is required for treatment, with mortality historically as high as 22% in the four- to six-month period from the first- to second-stage surgical palliation, known as the interstage. A standardized postoperative feeding approach was implemented through an evidence-based protocol, parent engagement, and interprofessional team rounds. Five infants with single ventricle physiology preprotocol were compared with five infants who received the standardized feeding approach. Mann- Whitney π‘ˆ tests were conducted to evaluate the hypotheses that infants in the intervention condition would consume more calories and have a positive change inweight-to-age 𝑧-score (WAZ) and shorter length of stay (LOS) following the first and second surgeries compared to infants in the control condition. After the protocol, the change inWAZ during the interstage increased by virtually one standard deviation from 0.05 to 0.91.Median LOS dropped 32% after the first surgery and 43% after the second surgery. Since firstand second-stage palliative surgeries occur within the same year of life, this represents savings of $500,000 to $800,000 per year in a 10-infant model.The standardized feeding approach improved growth in single ventricle infants while concurrently lowering hospital costs.

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