F A M I LY M AT T E R S
Nolan was born at 28 weeks weighing 1.3kg to Anett and John McHugh. Nolan had a rough start but today he’s doing well on low oxygen support and growing appropriately.
FAMILY INTEGRATED CARE THE TOWNSVILLE HOSPITAL IS INTRODUCING A NEW MODEL OF CARE TO FURTHER ENCOURAGE PARENTS’ INVOLVEMENT IN THE NURTURE OF SICK BABIES.
The Townsville Family Integrated Care (FIC) study is ready to roll out in the Townsville Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care and Special Care Nursery Unit on July 14, 2014. The FIC care model was first developed in Estonia. Dr Shoo Lee, a neonatologist in Toronto, Canada, had done a small study to educate and encourage parents and neonatal staff to have more involvement in the care of pre-term and sick babies. It also encouraged parents to take part in the morning ward rounds. The results of the study show a positive impact on the babies’ and parents’ wellbeing, including minimising hospital-acquired infection and dramatically increasing breastfeeding rates. Dr Lee and his colleagues are currently undertaking a bigger study involving 17 NICUs in Canada to further analyse data on the potential benefits of FIC for babies, parents and staff. The Neonatal Unit at The Townsville Hospital (TTH) is one of the Australian hospitals chosen and funded by the Canadian researchers to be part of the FIC study. The FIC has received not only Canadian funding and a generous supply of FIC resources, but also tremendous support from the team leaders in nursing, allied health and medicine in the Neonatal Unit at TTH.
Nolan, Anett and John McHugh with Jennifer Orbeso and Dr Guan Koh.
Under the FIC model, parents will provide most of the daily care for their babies in the hospital while nurses provide education, support and guidance to the parents. As part of the medical rounds parents will be encouraged to present about their baby’s
condition and will also be invited to record their baby’s vital signs in their own record charts. The lead FIC investigators in Townsville are two very able neonatal nurses, Jennifer Orbeso and Michelle Thomson, and Dr Guan Koh who is leading the project in liaison with Associate Professor Kei Lui at the Royal Women’s Hospital Randwick. The study period is over one year during which all parents of babies less than 33 weeks are asked to be part of the study. The Townsville team aims to recruit 50 families with neonates less than 35 weeks’ gestation, on low-level oxygen support that are clinically stable. For the study, the parents need to be with their babies for eight hours a day. “This study is important because it represents a major shift in care for infants in neonatal units,” say TTH neonatal nurses Jen and Michelle. “It has a structured program to encourage more parental involvement and actually formalises what The Townsville Hospital NICU/SCN have been doing. “We aim to integrate parents more in to the reality of medical decision-making and are very excited that our Neonatal Unit has been chosen to be a part of this project.” Dr Guan Koh, Director of the Neonatal Unit, said FIC could be an amazing new dawn in neonatal care where professionals and parents work together like ‘a pair of chopsticks’ as equal partners with different strengths. PHOTOGRAPHY SANDRA HEIER EVENSEN
DUO MAGAZINE JULY 2014 duomagazine.com.au
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