Texas Health was the first large health system in the nation to adopt RQI for NRP in 2022

About 10% of infants require assistance to begin breathing at birth, making it crucial that medical care team members be well-versed in newborn resuscitation.

“We hope to never need to use those skills, but having the staff trained is important for those very infrequent times when a baby stops breathing and needs to be resuscitated,” said Chad Barber, M.D., FAAP, medical staff physician, associate medical director of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and lead Neonatal Resuscitation Program instructor at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth. Barber trains members of the medical staffs and neonatal nurse practitioners (NNPs) at Texas Health hospitals. 

Texas Health Resources was the first large health system in the nation to adopt the Neonatal Resuscitation Program^® (NRP) in 2022. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in collaboration with RQI Partners, co-developed the Resuscitation Quality Improvement^® Program (RQI) to create RQI for NRP.

“Taking the best evidence and techniques available to educate medical staff physicians and clinical staff how to appropriately utilize this life-saving skill is so important,” said Sunita Koshy-Nesbitt, M.D., Hospital Channel chief quality officer and a clinical cardiac electrophysiologist. “This is a unique population – one that is most vulnerable and yet the one with the most at stake. Teaching this skill is a privilege and I am proud of the clinical educators’ ability to deliver this critical training.”

For Nicole Nathlich refreshing her skills quarterly makes her more comfortable should an emergency arise.

“Anytime I have 15 or 20 minutes I can easily stop by and practice my skills using the infant manikin, which provides me real-time information and corrections on my form and pressure,” said Nathlich, R.N., mother-baby unit, at Texas Health Fort Worth.

The RQI for NRP is a 30-minute blended learning approach that includes online testing and hands-on simulations. Hands-on simulations are performed at the RQI for NRP simulation station on-site. The station comes with an infant manikin nurses, respiratory therapists and nurse residents can use to improve their technique by completing positive pressure ventilation activities using the self-inflating bag and T-Piece (Neopuff), a device widely used to provide positive pressure ventilation during resuscitation of infants. Next to the manikin is a laptop that tracks each ventilation and gives individuals immediate visual feedback, plus tips on how to improve their skills.

The program was implemented in January 2022 at Texas Health’s 12 wholly owned hospitals that offer obstetrics services. Since then, caregivers have performed more than 1.8 million positive pressure ventilations using the simulation station on-site. In the last quarter of 2022, 1,828 individuals completed NRP activities for Texas Health.