An analysis of the communication between health care professionals and parents of infants in neonatal intensive care units is greatly needed for the development of measures of communication quality, according to researchers. "Without such a measure, it will be difficult to advance the field and achieve high quality prognostic communication for the parents of seriously ill babies," researchers said.

Alex Ruffner uses music to help premature infants adjust to life at Norton Women's and Children's Hospital in Kentucky. The music therapist says infants let her know if they are overwhelmed with cues that include "finger displays, halt hands, any increased workup breathing."

Transplanting stem cells into the trachea of premature infants was safe and effective at reducing inflammatory cytokines in the tracheal aspirate fluid but did not significantly reduce mortality in cases of bronchopulmonary dysplasia, according to a Phase II study in Stem Cells Translational Medicine. Researchers are conducting a trial with a larger sample size.

Long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on health care likely will include having a mix of in-person and virtual care, more home care and monitoring, and increased reliance on cloud-based platforms, experts told the virtual CHIME21 Spring Forum. Cook Children's Health Care System CIO Teresa Meadows said the pandemic will lead to greater consumerization of health care, with a focus on health literacy and care provided outside hospital and office settings.

The CMS extended the deadline for practices to apply for the second cohort of the Primary Care First advanced alternative payment model from April 30 to May 21. The CMS Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation will hold a webinar about the model on May 5.

Researchers studied 625,643 maternal-child pairs in Canada, 12,045 of whom were exposed to tetanus, diphtheria and acellular pertussis vaccine in utero, and found no link between Tdap vaccine exposure during pregnancy and increased rates of neoplasms, sensory disorders or immune-related outcomes among children. The findings in Pediatrics also showed that children of mothers who were vaccinated with Tdap had reduced rates of gastrointestinal infections, upper respiratory infections, and urgent care or inpatient health service use.

A report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association documented over 88,000 new pediatric COVID-19 cases for the week ending April 15, representing 20.6% of all new cases for the week in the US and surpassing the previous high of 19.1% recorded three weeks ago. There have been over 3.6 million pediatric cases of COVID-19 in 49 states excluding New York, as well as Washington, D.C., New York City, Puerto Rico and Guam since the start of the pandemic, accounting for 13.6% of all reported COVID-19 cases in those areas.

Denver Health is creating a Y2K-themed virtual escape room that incorporates training about the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators. The gamified training will be launched during National Nurses Week, May 6-12, and it follows the health system's use of an online scavenger hunt as part of its campus orientation.