Document Type

Final Project

Graduation Date

Winter 12-20-2024

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice

First Advisor

Kelly Betts

Abstract

Introduction

Accidental injury and death to infants has been correlated to lack of proper education to parents of infants in the primary pediatric care setting. Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and unintentional injuries were the second and third leading causes of post neonatal death during this period of time (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2016). Studies have found that motor vehicle accidents are a leading cause of child injury and death for infants under 12 months of age. The CDC found that drowning, suffocation, and poisoning were other leading causes that contributed to child injury and death rates for infants under 12 months of age (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2022). This project proposal will discuss the impact of proper education to parents and caretakers in the primary pediatric setting related to infant injury incidence. The importance of providing parental education in infancy to parents and caregivers will be examined in the pediatric primary care setting with the goal of decreasing cases of infant injuries in a primary care pediatric clinic.

Methods

The project design is a retrospective chart review that contains a pre and post survey that parents will complete. The survey will ask questions about parental knowledge prior to and after the implementation of a patient education portal and distribution of parent educational materials in clinic. The surveys and educational materials will be given to parents of infants less than 12 months of age. Charts from the previous year of infants under the age of one at the clinic will be checked for Emergency Room (ER) visits and past or recent hospitalizations of the infant. The clinic receives messages if their parents are hospitalized, so the provider is alerted to this. The enrolled infants’ charts will be checked for documentation of education at visits, and if the infant has been to the ER or admitted to the hospital since the last well-child check. This information (data collected) will be documented in an excel spreadsheet. The website will be checked every 1-2 weeks to document the number of parental/guardian views. Once the infants are a year old, they will no longer be a part of the study. Their documentation of education, ER and hospital visits and parent surveys will be looked at collectively. The infant injury rate and mortality of the infants in the study will be compared to those from the previous year.

Results

Our stakeholder’s clinic handed out our 10-question survey along with our QR code that takes the parent/guardian to our education portal, to parents of each baby 12 months and younger for every visit that they checked in for, from 08/23/24 to 09/23/24. Over this month, we received 31 completed surveys. The results showed that majority (80.6%) of parents/guardians who filled out the survey are aware of the patient portal. Only 29% of parents/guardians had accessed their patient portal since their child’s last visit. About 71% of the survey takers had not accessed the portal. Of the 29% who did access the portal, 1 of them accessed for questions or concerns regarding infectious disease or illness, 5 accessed for questions/concerns regarding routing infant care, and 2 accessed for billing related questions or concerns. 100% of the survey takers answered “no”, showing that out of the 31 infants 12 months and under within the past month, none of them had suffered any injuries since they were last seen. 16% of the patients who were surveyed have been to the ER at some point in their lifetime. Of the 5 who had been seen at the ER at some point in their lives, 3 of them were seen for something illness-related, and 2 were seen for “other reasons”, which consisted of “weird breathing” and “sibling shook walker that baby was sitting in”. Results show that majority of those who have accessed the portal for whatever reason, found it to be helpful. 87% of those who answered would find education on safe infant care, infant normal and abnormal and information on infant illness helpful on the portal. 13% of those who completed the survey reported that this information would not be helpful. Question 10 leaves space for any additional feedback from parents and only 2 people responded with additional feedback. This consisted of “there is no information regarding the portal anywhere in clinic or on the website” and “I have found the patient portal to not be very user friendly in the past and have not been able to link multiple children’s accounts”. What we have gathered from this information is that the clinic could advertise the patient portal more, so that all patients/caretakers are aware that there is a patient portal present and available, and that there is room for improvement on the patient portal.

Conclusion

Overall, our interpretation of the survey results is that most people were aware that the clinic had a patient portal and for the most part, found it useful for what they needed to access the portal for. Majority of the responders would find educational material helpful if it was available and present on the patient portal and think there could be tweaks or improvements made to the portal to make it more user friendly

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