Neonatal Intensive Care Education (NICE) QI Initiative

Improving quality of neonatal intensive care through education

Problem

Optimizing neonatal patient care begins with a strong Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine (NPM) fellowship education. However, the recent shifts in graduate medical education requirements and the field of neonatology present new challenges to fellows’ clinical training including fewer procedural opportunities, more complex patient population, and concentration of specialized care. These pressing problems threaten the preparedness of the future generations of neonatologists.

Solution

1. Conduct a needs assessment to identify gaps and assess the quality of NPM fellowship education
2. Establish a decentralized educational structure of curriculum development led by multidisciplinary content experts and interested fellows organized by organ systems and special interest groups
3. Create a system to promote quality educational products, active engagement throughout the whole process of curriculum development, and medical education scholars

Content-specific NICE subcommittees

Bring together neonatal faculty, pediatric subspecialty faculty, allied health professionals, and trainees to lead the content-specific curriculum development and delivery

  • Respiratory

  • Maternal Fetal Medicine

  • Asphyxia and Resuscitation

  • Cardiovascular

  • Neurology and Neurodevelopmental Outcome

  • Eyes, Ears, Nose, Mouth, Throat, and Neck

  • Genetics

  • Health Services Delivery Ethical Issues and Family Counseling

  • Pharmacology

  • Hematology/Oncology

  • Water/Salt/Renal

  • Biostatistics

  • Endocrine Metabolic Thermal

  • Skin Disorders

  • Gastroenterology

  • Nutrition

  • Immunology

  • Infectious Diseases

  • Wellness/Career Development/Leadership

  • Diversity/Equity/Inclusion/Antiracism

  • POCUS and Neonatal Hemodynamics

Quality Metrics

Success of the program will be assessed by a combination of quality rating, knowledge test, and measurable changes in behavior. The core pillars of education quality metrics are:

  • Organization and efficiency

  • Effectiveness and engagement

  • Clinical application

  • Boards exam preparation

  • Professional growth and career development

  • Wellness, resiliency, and sense of community

  • Diversity, equity, inclusion, and antiracism

Results

The NICE QI initiative improved the NPM fellowship CORE education quality ratings in 7 key areas from baseline over 20% and sustained them over 9 months.

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Piyawat Arichai, MD FAAP
2024