CHICAGO – The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has developed a new pediatric toolkit, resulting from the work of the Safe and Healthy Beginnings (SHB) improvement project. Safe and Healthy Beginnings: A Resource Toolkit for Hospitals and Physicians’ Offices, was designed to help provide optimal health care for newborns. The SHB improvement project was developed to ensure a safe and healthy start for newborns by testing measures, strategies and tools based on key points of the 2004 AAP hyperbilirubinemia (jaundice) policy statement, which include:

• Assessment of a newborn’s risk for severe jaundice
• Breastfeeding support for mothers
• Coordination of care between the newborn nursery and primary care practice – the newborn’s medical home.

Through the project, tested tools are available for widespread use by hospitals and physicians’ offices. The kit includes readiness checklists, follow-up letters, inventories, assessment and documentation tools, parent handouts, as well as newly produced Bright Futures tools. The majority of tools were tested by pediatricians in the field and adapted as needed prior to publication. “Health care organizations and caregivers must commit themselves to using effective strategies to make a difference in improving care for newborn babies,” said Mark Chassin, MD, MPP, MPH, president, The Joint Commission. “The SHB toolkit provides important help for clinicians and hospitals to be sure that some of the most important aspects of care are provided with consistent excellence in the hospital and then coordinated effectively with the baby’s primary care providers.”

Another supporter of the project, Richard McClead, Jr., MD, FAAP, Vice Chairman for Quality at Ohio State University Nationwide Children’s Hospital, said, “The SHB toolkit is a great resource for any practitioner caring for infants in the well baby nursery. Proper assessment of neonatal jaundice, support for the breastfeeding mother and coordination of care with the infant’s medical home, are all key processes that we must get right prior to discharge. The SHB toolkit can help us do that.”

The project was produced by the AAP Quality Improvement Innovation Network (QuIIN) in partnership with the Center for Health Care Quality at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and was funded by the AAP, the AAP Section on Perinatal Pediatrics, McNeil Consumer Healthcare, and the Centers for Education and Research on Therapeutics of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. It is endorsed by the Joint Commission and Child Health Corporation of America. Learn more about the toolkit at http://practice.aap.org/content.aspx?aid=2577. Additional information about QuIIN as well as the Safe and Healthy Beginnings Improvement Project are available at http://quiin.aap.org.

The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 60,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults.