6 Questions To Answer Before Bringing In A Feeding Management System
If you're considering a feeding management system, here are six essential things to know about your organization:
What are your compliance goals?
Hospitals often contact us to enhance the safety of their feeding management process, aligning new safety goals with compliance objectives set by external bodies. Examples include:
Passing The Joint Commission’s review
Achieving HIMSS Stage 7 validation
Improving the Leapfrog hospital safety grade
Joining their state’s hospital quality consortium
Focusing on these goals indicates a commitment to safety. Determine what data, metrics, or outcomes you want to track and report.
Who is preparing feeds?
Feed preparation isn't as straightforward as it seems. Hospital staff (nurses, PCAs, techs) or third-party food service contractors may handle preparation. For example, staff may prepare for the NICU while third-party contractors handle pediatric floors. Understanding your current setup helps identify the right stakeholders and break down silos.
Which units need the solution?
If one group prepares human milk and formula for the entire hospital, you're in good shape, but that's less common. The NICU may have its own central prep, while pediatric floors use a combination of central and bedside preparation. Map out the units where feeds are administered and the groups preparing feeds, such as nutrition labs, milk banks, pharmacy, and food services.
When should each site go live?
Decide based on your findings. Can you phase the rollout? Should it be all at once? If a central preparation lab serves both the NICU and pediatric floors, phasing the rollout to the NICU first could create two workflows and double effort. For health systems with multiple hospitals, phasing the rollout to one hospital at a time may be ideal, supporting phased training and education.
How do you approach education?
Right-sized education on new technology is crucial for current staff and future hires. Some health systems develop Centers of Excellence for training standards, but many hospital staff educators are spread thin. Consider these training models:
Train the Trainer
All Staff Training
Virtual Training (via Zoom, Teams, etc.)
In-Person Training
Learning Management Systems (LMS)
Sandbox Environments (practice websites)
Options exist within each category. For example, Nurse Educators trained by the vendor can become Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and lead staff training. Charge Nurses, Clinical Nurse Specialists, and others in leadership roles can also become SME trainers and Super Users.
Why should your institution make a change?
This could be the first or last question to consider, but it's the most important. Champions of change come from all corners of the hospital, including Nurse Managers, Lactation Consultants, Service Line Leaders, Chief Nursing Officers, Medical Directors, and Quality & Safety Officers. Ideally, hospitals want to make a change because the outcomes are better for staff and patients, and costs are more predictable.
Hospitals and health systems prioritize staff and patient safety. A new feeding management system should alleviate staff burden, enhance safety, and provide measurable outcomes. If your institution can't measure these outcomes today, consider a system that helps benchmark and track improvement.
About the Author
Asim Malik is Head of Sales for Keriton.