Approach
DEFINE Colorado partners with NICU families, healthcare team members, and community organizations to design meaningful interventions that address real-world needs.
Sleep Well Initiative: We promote safe sleep practices by modeling clear, consistent behaviors in the NICU- helping families learn how to safely put their babies to sleep and acclimating infants to a safe sleep environment.
Communication Initiative: Our newest effort strengthens communication between families and NICU teams, aiming to reduce parental stress and anxiety through consistent, compassionate, and engaging interactions.
Results
Since the start of this program in fall 2021, participating hospitals have seen quality improvements in communication with parents in the NICU. Parents went from receiving updates on their baby’s care an average of 4 days in the first week of their baby’s admission to every day in the first week of their baby’s admission.
An average of 94.2% of families have contact with social workers within the first week of NICU hospitalization since the conception of the program in quarter 3 2021. Additionally, when the program started, the average first day of social work contact was on day 3.2. In quarter 1 of 2023, the average day of first social work contact is day 2. This is a 37.5% decrease.
