Implementing developmentally supportive family-centered care in the newborn intensive care unit as a quality improvement initiative

Intensive care nursery personnel increasingly seek to practice developmental and family-centered care, but become frustrated when attempting implementation. Reports of effective change strategies for integration to practice are limited. This article presents a summary of one unit's experience using the performance improvement process to move toward a developmentally supportive, family-centered care delivery model. Results to date indicate that a comprehensive quality improvement process guided by a unit-based newborn developmental specialist can provide the framework to achieve the change from traditional, provider-centered, task-directed care to holistic, individualized, relationship-based care.