California NICU disaster preparedness.

Objective: NICU patients are disproportionately affected by any disaster due to their vulnerability and highly specialized care needs that require a multitude of resources. Research in disaster preparedness and its effect on NICU patients is limited.

Study Design: From March to May 2018, NICUs across California participated in a survey designed to assess their preparedness for a disaster.

Quality Assurance Practices in Obstetric Care: A Survey of Hospitals in California.

Objective: To assess hospital practices in obstetric quality management activities and identify institutional characteristics associated with utilization of evidence-supported practices.

Methods: Data for this study came from a statewide survey of obstetric hospitals in California regarding their organization and delivery of perinatal care. We analyzed responses from 185 hospitals that completed quality assurance sections of the survey to assess their practices in a broad spectrum of quality enhancement activities.

Neonatal intensive care unit antibiotic use.

Background And Objectives: Treatment of suspected infection is a mainstay of the daily work in the NICU. We hypothesized that NICU antibiotic prescribing practice variation correlates with rates of proven infection, necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), mortality, inborn admission, and with NICU surgical volume and average length of stay.

Methods: In a retrospective cohort study of 52,061 infants in 127 NICUs across California during 2013, we compared sample means and explored linear and nonparametric correlations, stratified by NICU level of care and lowest/highest antibiotic use rate quartiles.

Hospital variation in medical and surgical treatment of patent ductus arteriosus.

Objective: This study aims to characterize population risks for diagnosis, medical treatment, and surgical ligation of patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) in very low-birth-weight infants.

Study Design: Maternal and neonatal data were collected in 40 hospitals in California during 2011 for infants with birth weight ≤ 1,500 g without any congenital malformation, with a diagnosis of PDA. Multivariable logistic regression was used to determine independent risks for PDA diagnosis and for surgical ligation.

Comparison of methods for identifying a population-based sample of Filipina women for a health survey.

This paper describes and compares 2 random-digit dialing (RDD) methods that have been used to select minority subjects for population-based research. These methods encompass the census-based method, which draws its primary sampling units from census tracts with a high proportion of minority persons, and the registry-based method, which derives its primary sampling units from a population-based cancer registry. Our study targeted Filipinos living in 10 Northern California counties, where they constitute 4% of the total population.