Parents' experiences of having a child undergoing congenital heart surgery: An emotional rollercoaster from shocking to blessing.

Objectives: To describe parents' experiences when their child with congenital heart disease (CHD) underwent heart surgery.

Background: About 40,000 children are born with CHD in the United States each year. Very few studies have explored parents' experiences when their child was diagnosed with CHD and underwent heart surgery.

Families of children with congenital heart disease: A literature review.

In 2000 and 2002, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute launched two initiatives to encourage treatment innovations and research on children with heart disease and their families. Since then, no systematic reviews have examined the evidence regarding the impacts of having a child with congenital heart disease (CHD) on families. This review synthesized key findings regarding families of children with CHD, critiqued research methods, described what has been done, and provided recommendations for future inquiry.

Strict hand hygiene and other practices shortened stays and cut costs and mortality in a pediatric intensive care unit.

Efforts to reduce infections acquired during a hospital stay through improvements in the quality of care have had measurable results in many hospital settings. In pediatric intensive care units, the right quality interventions can save lives and money. We found that improving practices of hand hygiene, oral care, and central-line catheter care reduced hospital-acquired infections and improved mortality rates among children admitted to a large pediatric intensive care unit in 2007-09.

Family alert: implementing direct family activation of a pediatric rapid response team.

A hospital's "no false alams" policy has been validated by staff's and families' appropriate activation of the rapid response team.