First Advisor
Dunemn, Kathleen
Second Advisor
Romero, Michaela C.
Degree Name
Doctor of Nursing Practice
Document Type
Capstone
Date Created
12-2017
Department
College of Natural and Health Sciences, Nursing, Nursing Student Work
Abstract
The healthcare workforce is moving from a traditional physician-only model to a multi-level medical provider model. Neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) have come to rely on neonatal nurse practitioners due to the decrease in resident physician hours and the lower cost of hiring a neonatal nurse practitioner. Studies have found advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) can provide benefits in the areas of communication, patient outcomes, patient satisfaction, and cost. An increasing number of critically ill infants are requiring specialized pre- and postoperative care in one Level IV NICU, which has led to continuous quality improvement in communication and continuity of care between the surgical and NICU team. With the increasing number of surgical infants, a new role called “surgical” neonatal nurse practitioner (NNP) has been developed and implemented to help improve communication between the surgery team and the NICU team, thus improving patient outcomes. The surgical neonatal nurse practitioner team is a dedicated group of NNPs who care for the surgical patients. New surgical education was implemented in the new graduate NNP fellowship program already in place through the Level IV NICU NNP group. This new surgical education was evaluated with pre- and post-tests and a comfort survey completed by the new graduate NNPs. Results from the pre- and post-tests indicated significant differences existed between the median pre- and post-test scores. The comfort survey found new graduate NNPs felt comfortable but not confident with managing surgical infants and requested more surgical management education during orientation. The NNP education team is taking their comments from the survey into account when making changes in the New Graduate NNP Fellowship Program.
Keywords
Neonatal nurse practitioner, Continuity of care, Surgical infants, NICU
Extent
71 pages
Local Identifiers
StephanyCapstone2017
Rights Statement
Copyright is held by the author.
Digital Origin
Born digital
Recommended Citation
Stephany, Megan Rose, "Evaluation of a New Surgical Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Core Team in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit" (2017). Doctoral Capstones & Scholarly Projects. 34.
https://digscholarship.unco.edu/capstones/34