Nurse.com reported that nurses at the Engelwood Hospital and Medical Center in New Jersey, developed a new cue-based feeding program for infants that has improved the quality of care in the maternity and neonatal intensive care wards.
According to the media outlet, nurses, nurse practitioners and nurse administrators have implemented the new plan, which is based upon identifying feeding readiness cues, after a three-year study. The program teaches parents to pick up on signs such as hand-to-mouth sucking and rooting that indicate that an infant is ready to eat.
Mary De Ritter, a clinical nurse specialist who has earned her Master of Science in Nursing, developed the program after noticing the inability of many new parents to correctly feed their infants. As a result of the cue-based feeding plan, Press Ganey scores, which measure patient satisfaction, are up at the hospital.
"Not only have we incorporated a program that provides better care, families are more involved in the decision-making," De Ritter, the nurse administrator for the NICU, told the news source. "We have taken the randomness and tradition out of the route of feedings, and through the assessment tools, we have standardized our care."
