The hospitalization of newborns in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is an emotional and stressful experience for parents. This can affect their mental and physical health. Research from Healthy Start shows how interventions in the form of remote digital care – ‘telemedicine’ – can help parents.

There is growing research into the impact of medical care for their baby on parent’s well-being. ‘Telemedicine’ offers new opportunities for support. For example think of real-time video communication or remote patient monitoring. How can these interventions improve parents’ well-being during the care of their newborn baby? Recent research from Healthy Start shows that solutions like real-time video communication and eHealth-apps can help parents to:

• Feel more confident
• Feel more prepared for bringing their baby home
• Experience less anxiety and stress

Bridging knowledge from science and practice

The research takes a ‘transdisciplinary’ approach, which means: together with multiple scientific disciplines and a societal partner. The research is part of the PhD project of Josephine Wagenaar (Erasmus MC) within the Healthy Start ambition ‘Children’s hospital of the future’. Researchers from TU Delft and the neonatology patient organisation Care4Neo were closely involved. The collaboration with the TU Delft offered a new approach of the data, where ‘system thinking’ and ‘design thinking’ helped to interpret findings. Care4Neo made a vital contribution by helping to incorporate and interpret the parental perspective from the literature

Next steps

While most studies focus on daily updates and discharge preparation, there has been little focus on parental well-being. Further research is essential to understand how ‘telemedicine’ interventions specifically improve the parents’ experiences. For the future, actively involving parents in the development and evaluation of ‘telemedicine’-solutions will be crucial to making meaningful improvements in their well-being.

Interested in learning more or collaborating? Please contact Josephine Wagenaar: j.wagenaar@erasmusmc.nl