| Abstract | 40,000 very-low-birth-weight (VLBW; BW<1500 grams, 3lb 5oz.) infants receive care in the US annually in special neonatal intensive care units (NICU). They represent a significant patient population evidenced by an average NICU stay of 61.2 days and $55,000 (1995 dollars) of hospital costs per VLBW infant. Providing appropriate nutrition to these infants is an important component of their hospital recovery and remains a significant clinical challenge. Pediatric patients have a 3-fold higher risk of medication order errors compared to adult patients, with NICU patients the highest risk group of pediatric patients. Decision support has been shown to reduce such errors, improve care, and decrease costs. Despite its potential advantages and an extensive neonatal nutrition knowledge base, routine use of decision support to design parenteral nutrition has been infrequent in the clinical environment. To assess decision support use to provide neonatal nutrition in NICU’s, we evaluated neonatal nutrition information resources and nutrition design techniques at eight NICU’s in North Carolina. This paper describes the results of the interviews and analysis of nutrition ordering techniques. |