Mobile-Enhanced Family Integrated Care

 

How would NICU parents and their infant's health change if parents were centered as the primary caregivers in the NICU alongside their care team?

 

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Integrating parents as members of their baby's NICU care team

 

Family Integrated Care (FiCare™) is a model of care that transforms the culture of the NICU by training and supporting parents to be their baby’s primary caregiver and partners in the care team. PTBi-CA is leading the first U.S. evaluation of a mobile-enhanced version of this intervention, mFICare, at six NICUs throughout California. The We3health™ app, developed with NICU parents, allows parents to track their baby’s progress, as well as their own; watch helpful videos; and journal about their experience. It also acts as a study data collection tool.

The mFICare study compares infant outcomes and parent experiences between two study phases: (1) during standard of care (family-centered care) and (2) after mFICare implementation.

Six NICU sites that are involved in the mFICare study include:

  • UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, San Francisco
  • UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital, Oakland
  • Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno
  • University of California Los Angeles
  • University of California San Diego
  • Kaiser Permanente, Santa Clara

mFICare

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mFICare in Action: Benioff Children's Hospital-SF NICU Experience

The following highlights describe how mFICare is being used at BCH-SF: 

Parent classes

All parents can now attend parent classes four or five times a week. A transdisciplinary team of BCH-SF experts facilitates the classes, which cover relevant topics and encourage parents to connect with each other to create a sense of community and peer support.

"In the classes, we had a bond. It lifted a burden off my shoulders. It was a big comfort because I wasn’t alone."

 

Parents in an mFICare NICU class

Trained parent mentors

Specially trained parent mentors – six parents who have experienced the NICU – provide individual support and encouragement to new NICU parents. To meet demand, we have recently recruited and trained a second cohort of 13 parent mentors who will begin supporting study parents this spring. Learn more.

 

"I’ve been there, I’m there – no one who hasn’t been there actually ‘gets it.’ "

Parents participating in NICU rounds

Parents enrolled in the mFICare study are actively participating in patient rounds, and those who can’t be at the bedside are able to participate remotely. Efforts are now underway to integrate parents in rounds for all NICU patients.

 

"I live very far away, so rounds have been able to make me feel closer to her and more involved with her."

NICU parents taking part in medical rounds

 

mFICare: where are we now?

  • Data analysis for the study is underway!
  • A total of 294 infants and parents recruited across all six sites
  • The We3health app has been licensed to a health technology company with a late 2021 release
  • We've prioritized recruiting BIPOC participants and have achieved a significantly more diverse study population than many studies in the field

 

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mFICare News and Updates

mFICare Publications