Yeovil nurses reduce jaundice diagnosis from hours to minutes
The condition causes the skin and whites of the eyes to turn yellow
Babies that are re-admitted to Yeovil Hospital with jaundice can now get their diagnosis within just two to three minutes.
Until now, the process took up to seven hours, resulting in babies remaining hospitalised for 16 hours longer than with the new method.
Senior sister Beth Hawken and nurse Eleonora Forbes spent months researching a way to speed up the process.
Ms Forbes explained: “We found out we were actually already using this type of blood gas analysing equipment on our maternity unit, and one of the results shows the level of bilirubin in the blood – which is the main cause of jaundice”.
The process included five case studies at the hospital, literature reviews and talking to doctors, midwives and parents.
Though they also found that a lack of “education for colleagues” and information for parents were re-occurring issues, Ms Hawken and Ms Forbes soon realised that the biggest delay was in getting the blood tests back.
It often took several hours to take the babies’ bloods to the laboratory, analyse it and check the results, before they could start getting treatment, and the nurses “were sure that it could be reduced”.
Thanks to their research, they knew that other hospitals were already using a different technology, so they suggested to do the same in Yeovil.
From there, it took another few months until all the safety checks were completed and Ms Hawken and Ms Forbes got the green light for starting to use the machine.
“This is a real game changer in the care of neonatal babies as their treatment is not only much more efficient, but they’re not jaundice for so long, meaning they’re less likely to experience any complications”, said Ms Forbes.
The research was part of Somerset NHS Foundation Trust’s chief nurse research fellowship 2023.