Risk factors for intra-hospital transport of newborn patients: A new solution to an old problem

Evidence continues to demonstrate neonatal hypothermia and hyperthermia on admission to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). This article focuses on review of current literature and a description of recent research comparing intra-hospital transfers from the delivery room to the NICU, in the Giraffe OmniBed® and a traditional infant in-house transport system. Additionally a comparison of newborn NICU admission temperature measured at the rectum is described between the two transport systems. Secondary goals to reduce unnecessary transfer between thermal microenvironments and to examine staff efficiencies are discussed. Results demonstrated the use of the Giraffe OmniBed reduced bed transfers from 4 microenvironments (delivery room warmer, delivery scale, transport incubator, and NICU incubator) to 1 microenvironment (Giraffe OmniBed). Staff efficiencies also improved as time of birth to NICU admission was reduced to less than 26 min with the Giraffe OmniBed compared to 34 min under traditional approaches. The Giraffe OmniBed for stabilization through to NICU admission showed temperature 0.49 °C higher in the Giraffe OmniBed compared to the conventional transport incubator.