NICU on another floor

[PegRNBSN]

We had our second meeting with architects about building our new hospital. Because this will be a rather large unit, we (L&D, antepartum and M/B) are proposing moving our large NICU to a floor above with a dedicated elevator. Anyone have experience with this kind of set up? Or have any insights we may be missing

Thanks

[PegRNBSN]

Thanks for all the input. We are a Level 3 usually our census is about 20. The private room thing is an initiative that comes from a high level planning team that has done alot of research. We also will have windows in the NICU which we do not now.

I bring everything from this board to our planning meetings and it really helps.

[NicuGal, MSN, RN]

I'd be interesting in hearing what type of research and such led to the private rooms. I would think staffing would be an issue too if they are really private rooms.

Our unit is in pods and we have 5-6 per room.

[Mimi2RN, ASN, RN]

If you have private rooms for all the babies, and you are taking care of 2-3, how to react fast enough when a baby has "death spells" and turns black? At least we have other staff right there. We have one that's still doing that, and he's a month old, now. BTW, that's the doc's term, and very appropriate for this kid.

[Tiki_Torch]

I worked in a Level III NICU which was renovated. (26 bed NICU, 44 bed Mother-Baby/Antepartum Unit, 14 bed L&D)

Before renovation, NICU and Post-partum Mother-Baby Unit was on the same floor and L&D was on one floor down.

After renovation, NICU and L&D were on one floor and the Post-partum Mother-Baby Unit was on one floor down with two side-by-side dedicated elevators connecting the two floors.

The ideal would have been to have all three units on the same floor. When we realized there wasn't enough room from that, we decided that having L&D and NICU closer together would be better because more often we'd need to get newborn babies from L&D to NICU than needing to get Mother-Baby Unit babies to the NICU. In the three years after the renovation, we only had one case where a baby crashed on the Mother-Baby Unit (PDA closed and revealed congenital heart disease) and that baby was successfully resuscitated on the Mother-Baby Unit and then transferred to the NICU without incident. This had been our greatest fear and we were proud of your Mother-Baby nurses abilities and response to a critical baby situation. Our Mother-Baby Unit had special buttons installed in each of their two small nurseries which immediately rang in the NICU to alert us of a Code situation occuring on the Mother-Baby Unit.

The dedicated elevators made movement between floors very quick. The nurses could run up and down the stairwell too if they needed to. The dedicated elevators were very handy for transferring patients from L&D and Mother-Baby after deliveries, for CST and other prenatal tests (we had several antepartum patients on the Mother-Baby Unit who were too unstable for discharge but not unstable enough to warrant a more expensive L&D bed). Patients appreciate not having to stare at visitors and other hospital personnel when being transferred in elevators.

Good luck with your new unit!