University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital will soon be home to a new Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). The Quentin & Elisabeth Alexander NICU, opening this April, will connect to the current Transitional Care Center/Step-Down Unit via a newly constructed National City Bridge.

The Step-Down Unit provides care for infants who are stable enough to transfer from intensive care but still require hospitalization. This unit offers parents the opportunity to provide hands-on care for their babies with the assistance of professional health care staff, preparing parents for life at home.

“By encouraging parents to stay with their infant 24 hours a day and estimate what life will be like at home, the Step-Down Unit often becomes the parents’ temporary home away from home,” says Paula Forsythe, RN, MSN, clinical nurse specialist on this unit since it opened in 1997. “This environment optimizes active family participation and control in their infant’s care and recovery. Routines and programs of care are established in the hospital that will be continued at home.”

In addition to learning bedside experiences, the Step-Down Unit provides formal educational classes for parents on a variety of topics, including CPR, medication administration, oxygen therapy and ventilator care.

Many times these babies require extensive medication regimens and special feeding techniques. The Step-Down Unit lets the parents learn these routines before they are actually home with the infant,” says Michele Walsh, MD, medical director for the NICU at Rainbow. “We have done a great deal of research on this process, and we know that it reduces readmissions and greatly relieves parental anxiety for these families. We are thrilled to be bringing the family friendly NICU and our Step-Down Unit together in such a meaningful way.”

The National City Bridge will span an existing courtyard that is faced by three inpatient floors at the hospital. It will feature rainbow-colored glass panels, unique art niches and a bench seating area below a starry sky, created with fiber-optic lights.

Rainbow, which ranked #4 in the nation in neonatal care/NICU by U.S. News & World Report, cares for approximately 1,200 babies each year. The new $20 million, 25,000-squarefoot NICU was designed to continually improve Rainbow’s already impressive quality of care and outcomes.