Dr. Carlos Fajardo

The main purpose of my research is to increase the quality of care and improve survival and morbidity rates for preterm newborn infants in Latin America by establishing a neonatal network with accurate data collection translating it into information and implementing evidence based practice changes.

In many neonatal centers in Latin America there is an urgent need for accurate collection and interpretation of outcome data in real time. This is currently either non existent, incomplete or inaccurate. Therefore, there is very limited possibility or opportunity for benchmarking, collaboration in an active neonatal network for improvements in quality of care or measurement of the impact of evidence base changes in clinical practices on neonatal outcomes.

Objectives: We hypothesize that the introduction of high-quality evidence into a highly receptive and supportive clinical environment will optimize knowledge translation outcomes, producing positive changes in professional/patient outcomes, with decrease mortality and morbidity and overal costs. We have implemented a QI program called EPIQ in 15 units since July 2014, and making changes to improve care by repetitive cycles with measures of procedures and outcomes. We will continue to do so over the next few years and measurements of outcomes such as mortality, morbidity related to the prematurity will be taken. This project is modelled from the CNN EPIQ program that has been very successful in the canadian NICUs.