Measuring quality of care in moderate and late preterm infants

Objective To examine quality measures for moderate and late preterm (MLP) infants. Study design By prospectively analyzing Vermont Oxford Network’s all NICU admissions database, we adapted Baby-MONITOR, a composite quality measure for extremely/very preterm infants, for MLP infants. We examined correlations between the adapted MLP quality measure (MLP-QM) in MLP infants and Baby-MONITOR in extremely and very preterm infants. Result We studied 376,219 MLP (30–36 weeks GA) and 57,595 extremely/very preterm (25–29 weeks GA) infants from 465 U.S. hospitals born from 2016 to 2020. MLP-QM summary scores in MLP infants had weak correlation with Baby-MONITOR scores in extremely and very preterm infants ( r = 0.47). There was weak correlation among survival ( r = 0.19), no pneumothorax ( r = 0.35), and no infection after 3 days ( r = 0.45), but strong correlation among human milk at discharge ( r = 0.79) and no hypothermia ( r = 0.76). Conclusion Modest correlation among hospital care measures in two preterm populations suggests the need for MLP-specific care measures.