Babies provide focus for quality improvement team.
The challenge of quality improvement (QI) is to take its principles and tools and apply them to active problems in the clinical laboratory. The authors describe a 2-year QI project in which the staff of the laboratory and the neonatal care unit (NCU) significantly improved the care of babies who undergo heelsticks to provide blood samples for laboratory testing. Examples of quality tools used during the project are provided. The success of the QI project is due to the consistent and ongoing efforts of both staffs to care passionately about their customers--the babies of the NCU.
University Hospital, Denver, CO.
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Romfh
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Sepulveda-Pacheco
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DeAndrea
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Young
D001800:Blood Specimen Collection / Q000592:standards*; D003120:Colorado; D006365:Heel / Q000293:injuries; D006744:Hospital Bed Capacity, 100 to 299; D006785:Hospitals, University / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007363:Intensive Care Units, Neonatal / Q000592:standards*; D015274:Interdepartmental Relations; D007755:Laboratories, Hospital / Q000592:standards*; D008332:Management Quality Circles / Q000458:organization & administration; D011340:Problem Solving; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012107:Research Design