Executive Summary Checklist
Hypoxia in preterm infants can result in severe morbidity and mortality. Supplemental oxygen administration helps avoid hypoxia but hyperoxia can cause retinopathy of prematurity and increased risk for other conditions. Implementing an optimal oxygen targeting guideline can improve neonatal outcomes. To address suboptimal oxygen targeting:
- Make an organization-wide commitment by administrative, clinical, and patient engagement leaders to address neonatal patient safety related to oxygen administration.
- Assess opportunities to improve oxygen administration and monitoring for the prevention of adverse events due to lack or excess of oxygen.
- Implement interdisciplinary strategies and develop an action plan with a timeline with concrete milestones to implement an optimal oxygen guideline for neonates.
- Select technologies that have been shown to improve neonatal outcomes, including but not limited to: blenders, pulse oximetry, and heated humidifiers.
- Use blenders in all circumstances when administering oxygen, including the delivery room.
- Bird, Carefusion, Precision Medical’s low-flow and high-flow oxygen-air blenders
- Use heated humidifiers when using CPAP and in all circumstances where the infant is intubated, even for a few minutes.
- Use heated humidifiers in the delivery room.
- For pulse oximetry, select equipment that: a) can measure through motion and low perfusion conditions to avoid inaccurate measurements/false alarms and identify true alarms; and b) has been proven effective for neonatal oxygen targeting.
- Masimo Signal Extraction Technology (SET) pulse oximetry (until another technology is proven to be equivalent)
- Determine the oxygen targeting guideline that healthcare providers should implement:
- The SpO2 for a preterm baby breathing supplemental oxygen should not exceed 95%.
- The SpO2 for other larger infants and neonatal patients breathing supplemental oxygen should stay in the range of 88-95 or 90-96% depending on infant and condition.
- When SpO2 dips below the desired % or when the low alarm sounds, avoid a response that results in high saturation (>95%).
- In order to accomplish this, the monitor alarms should always be on and active when an infant is breathing supplemental oxygen.
- Neonates in an intensive care environment should always be monitored by a pulse oximeter capable of monitoring through motion and low perfusion with appropriate alarm limits.
- The high SpO2 alarm should be set to 95%, depending on the infant.
- The low SpO2 alarm should be set no lower than 85%.
- Alarms signaling should receive attention from the nurse/doctor/respiratory therapist.
- When a baby is not breathing supplemental oxygen or receiving any form of respiratory support, but is being monitored for desaturations, the low SpO2 alarm should be set at 85% and the high alarm can be turned off.
- Implement your action plan for including educational activities, workshops, and tools for all members of the neonatal healthcare team.
- Develop a process for continuous improvement by communicating with staff and implementing measures to improve processes in order to meet the oxygen targeting objective.
The Performance Gap
It has been clear for many decades that avoiding hypoxia in neonatal care is associated with increased survival and lower rates of cerebral palsy, other significant neurologic compromise. For this reason, hypoxia should be avoided; this is not to say that hyperoxia should be allowed. Supplemental oxygen in newborn infants has been over-utilized worldwide. This practice has been associated with prolonged hospitalizations, blindness for life due to retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), cancer in childhood, chronic lung disease, developmental disabilities, periventricular leukomalacia, cerebral palsy and other oxidant-stress related adverse effects including DNA damage, endocrine and renal damage, decreased myocardial contractility, alveolar collapse, infection, inflammation and fibrosis \cite{Collins_2001,12769184,17537007,15613575,18458550,18446174}. Most if not all of these complications are as a result of care in the newborn period and cannot be fully eradicated. However, evidence shows eliminating inappropriate oxygen administration and increasing the use of oxygen monitoring can lead to significantly decreased rates of these preventable conditions \cite{24838096,Sola_2015}.
The use of unnecessary oxygen or suboptimal administration of oxygen, and the resulting prolonged hospital stays add significantly to health care costs, not to mention the tremendous emotional costs of preventable chronic conditions. Actively addressing the administration and monitoring of oxygen in newborn infants to prevent both hypoxia and hyperoxia can realize significant improvements in the quality and safety of healthcare as well as cost savings \cite{23268664}.
Hospital practices for oxygen monitoring are variable. Many delivery rooms and neonatal intensive care units worldwide adhere to outdated or otherwise inappropriate protocols. The evidence has shown that excessive oxygen administration during the first few minutes of life is noxious. Yet, in many delivery rooms worldwide, pure oxygen (100% O2) is still administered unnecessarily, FiO2 is not measured, and oxygen saturation (SpO2) levels are not adequately monitored \cite{21091987,Shah_2012,Bizzarro_2013,Chow_2003,Deulofeut_2006,2010}. Therefore, there is an opportunity to prevent many adverse effects through education on appropriate oxygen management, such as the measurement of oxygen titration with a blender and monitoring the infant’s saturation level with pulse oximetry technology that can measure through motion and low perfusion \cite{12563061}.
In a two-phased study of two centers that previously used conventional pulse oximetry, both centers simultaneously changed their neonatal oxygen targeting guideline, and one of the centers switched to Signal Extraction Technology pulse oximetry.14 In the first phase of the study, there was no decrease in retinopathy of prematurity at the center using non-Signal Extraction Technology; but there was a 58% reduction in significant retinopathy of prematurity and a 40% reduction in the need for laser eye treatment at the center using Signal Extraction Technology. In the second phase of the study, the center still using non-Signal Extraction Technology switched to Signal Extraction Technology and it experienced similar results as the center already using Signal Extraction Technology. In the follow up study, the outcomes of 304 very low birth weight infants whose oxygen targeting was performed with non-Signal Extraction Technology pulse oximetry were compared with 396 post-initiative infants whose oxygen targeting was performed after switching to Signal Extraction Technology pulse oximetry.13 After switching to Signal Extraction Technology, there was a 59% reduction in incidence of severe ROP and a 69% reduction in ROP requiring surgery.
A summary of recent publications on extremely premature infants randomly assigned to a lower target oxygen-saturation intention to treat (85 to 89%) or higher target SpO2 intention to treat (91 to 95%) has shown there was neither increased mortality nor serious brain injuries as a result of avoiding hyperoxia in preterm infants \cite{Stenson_2011,Saugstad_2011,Castillo_2008,Askie_2011}. Also a recent presentation by Askie et al (Cochrane review) shows that there is no difference in the primary outcome of death or disability between the two intentions to treat studied, a higher (91-95%) versus a lower (85-89%) arterial oxygen saturations. Higher rate of NEC occurred with lower intention to treat (85-89%) and a higher rate of severe ROP with higher target range (91-95%). Recently the Committee on Fetus and Newborn of the AAP have made clinical recommendations which are included in this document \cite{Cummings_2016}.
Therefore, an intention to treat with SpO2 of 85-89% should be avoided. There are several issues that suggest extreme caution should be used in the interpretation of these randomized controlled trials \cite{Manja_2015,25357098,24973289}. Additionally, narrow ranges are difficult to maintain for more than 50-60% of the time \cite{Di_Fiore_2014}. To date, the “perfect” SpO2 target range is still not known for all newborns at all times \cite{Saugstad_2010}.
In summary, in extremely low birth weight infants the ideal oxygen saturation range or intention to treat remains unknown and is a compromise among negative outcomes associated with either hyperoxemia (ROP, BPD) or hypoxemia (NEC, death). The appropriate SpO2 range for an individual infant will depend on the type of SpO2 monitor used, gestational age, postnatal age, hemoglobin A concentration, hemoglobin level, oxygen content, cardiac output, clinical diagnosis and illness severity \cite{Castillo_2010}. Despite this variability, it is clear that in order to improve clinical outcomes, some clinical practices must be eradicated and replaced with guidelines of clinical care aimed at avoiding both hyperoxia and hypoxia.
Alarms:
- Alarms should always be operative (do not disconnect or deactivate alarms).
- Alarm limits are used to avoid harmful extremes of hyperoxemia or hypoxemia.
- Busy NICU nurses respond much better to SpO2 alarms rather than to “mental SpO2 target ranges or intention to treat”.
- Given the limitations of SpO2 and the uncertainty regarding the ideal SpO2 intention to treat for infants of extremely low birth weight, wider alarm limits are easier to target.
- The lower alarm limit generally needs to extend somewhat below the lower SpO2 chosen as the intention to treat. It must take into account practical and clinical considerations, as well as the steepness of the oxygen saturation curve at lower saturations. It is suggested that the low alarm for extremely low birth weight infants be set no lower than 85% ( 86-87% may also be appropriate).
- The upper alarm limit should not be higher than 95% for extremely low birth weight infants while the infant remains on supplemental oxygen or any form of ventilatory support.
- ROP and other morbidities can be exacerbated by hyperoxemia. For example, at 5 years of age, motor impairment, cognitive impairment and severe hearing loss are 3 to 4 times more common in children with than without severe ROP.
Based on these considerations, there is a need to introduce clinical measures at all institutions caring for newborn infants to close the gap between knowledge and practice. The lack of a systematic approach to prevent hypoxia and hyperoxia significantly affects patient safety, quality, and cost of care. Closing the performance gap will require hospitals, healthcare systems and all members of the neonatal health care team (RN’s, RT’s and MD’s) to commit to action in the form of specific leadership, practice, and technology plans to improve safety for newborn infants who require oxygen supplementation.
Leadership Plan
- Implement a plan that includes fundamentals of change outlined in the National Quality Forum safe practices, including awareness, accountability, ability, and action \cite{sonot1}.
- Hospital governance and senior administrative leadership commit to become aware of this major performance gap in their own healthcare system.
- Hospital governance, senior administrative leadership, and clinical/safety leadership close their own performance gap by implementing a comprehensive approach to addressing the performance gap.
- Set a goal date to implement the plan to address the gap with measurable quality indicators - “Some is not a number. Soon is not a time" \cite{sonot2}.
- Allocate a budget for the plan to be evaluated by governance boards and senior administrative leaders.
- Clinical/safety leadership endorse the plan and drive implementation across all providers and systems.
- Collect data and perform analysis to be used for implementation and assessment of outcomes.
- Address and readdress two questions for quality improvement and to address gaps: Are we doing the right things? Are we doing things right?