ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pediatr.
Sec. Neonatology
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fped.2025.1623047
This article is part of the Research TopicNeonatal Critical Care Transport Research: Understanding the Unknown Between Departure and ArrivalView all articles
A Quality Improvement initiative to improve Transport Team Mobilization for Emergent Neonatal Transfers
Provisionally accepted
- 1Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University Medical College and Hospital, Pune, India
- 2Department of Neonatology, Mahatma Gandhi Medical College, Mahatma Gandhi University of Medical Sciences and Technology, Jaipur, India
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Introduction: A considerable number of neonatal deaths can be attributed to delays in accessing appropriate medical care or the absence of reliable systems for transferring newborns to advanced care centers. Infants requiring urgent transfer to specialized neonatal units are particularly vulnerable, often due to the limited capabilities of peripheral birthing facilities, the absence of structured neonatal transport networks, and the reliance on unsafe or uncoordinated transfer methods. About 25% of neonatal transfers that arise are time-sensitive and require specialized neonatal teams to respond promptly. Any delays in the mobilization of the retrieval team can adversely affect the delivery of this essential time-sensitive care.Methods: This single-center quality improvement study was conducted in a tertiary care center with a Level 3B NICU. We aimed to reduce our MT to ≤10 minutes in >70% of emergent neonatal transfers within three months. Multiple change ideas and Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles (designation of transport nurse, education regarding timely mobilization, keeping prechecked retrieval kit, keeping all equipment together) were carried out. Results:MT was reduced to ≤10 minutes in 70.6% of transfers, and MT was under 15 minutes in 80.6% of emergent neonatal transfers, achieving the benchmark of 15 minutes given for "launch time" by the ANZNRN 2022 data dictionary. Conclusion: Effectively formulated and executed quality improvement strategies can accelerate the benchmark time-related quality indicators for urgent neonatal transport teams during critical neonatal transfers. Our study encourages other healthcare setups to improve MT through simple yet effective measures.
Keywords: neonate, emergent transfer, Mobilization time, Quality Improvement, LMIC
Received: 05 May 2025; Accepted: 03 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Sohane, Kaur, Suryawanshi, Verma and Patnaik. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Suprabha Patnaik, Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University Medical College and Hospital, Pune, India
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