Clinical Decision Support to Improve Dosing Weight Use in Infants with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome

Opioid abuse in the United States is a public health emergency. From 2000 to 2009, prenatal maternal opiate use increased from 1.19 to 5.63 per 1,000 births, with up to 80% of in utero opioid-exposed infants requiring pharmacotherapy. This study aimed to increase the percentage of neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) medication orders based on birth weight (BW) in neonates admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit with a principal diagnosis of NAS from 29% to 90%, within 4 months of project initiation, and to sustain this for 6 months. This project occurred at an academic medical center with 5,000 deliveries per year and a 49-bed Level III neonatal intensive care unit. We used the Institute for Healthcare Improvement methodology, largely focusing interventions on clinical decision support (CDS) tools. We plotted all measures on Shewhart charts, and Nelson rules differentiated special versus common cause variation. The percent of orders based on BW increased from 29% to 78% after implementing multiple interventions focused primarily on CDS. However, this later decreased to 48% as workarounds began. There was also a significant decrease in the length of stay variability, which persisted throughout the project. CDS is a helpful tool to guide prescribing behavior; however, workarounds can negate its usefulness. Standardized use of BW for weight-based NAS medication prescribing can decrease the length of stay variability. Further studies are needed using a human factors approach to minimize workarounds in CDS and potentially decrease the length of stay in neonates with NAS.