Authors' objectives:

This report addresses the question whether employing 24h-on-site paediatricians at hospitals which provide care for low-risk births results in better outcome of newborns than arranging visiting consultants with on-call duties.

Authors' recommendations: Conclusion: According to the guidelines, experience and thus the yearly volume is relevant for adequate diagnostic and care in cases of neonatal problems and for routine examination. However, no accepted minimum case-load has been defined so far. Optimal neonatal care is to be seen as trade-off between maximal centralisation with maximum available and highly experienced staff on the one hand and short distances to hospital but higher risks due to low volumes on the other hand. Making an additional paediatric unit available would only be useful if general regional re-structuring took place that took into account the overall system of care and prognostic demographic factors. Recommendations: 1.) improving neonatological education for obstetricians 2.) guaranteeing neonatological acute-care in case of adaptation problems by highly experienced staff 3.) if necessary, restructuring (centralisation, reduction of obstetric units) by taking into account the overall system of care 4.) conducting further research in the form of primary studies

Project Status: Completed

URL for project: http://eprints.hta.lbg.ac.at/693/

Year Published: 2007

English language abstract: An English language summary is available

Publication Type: Not Assigned

Country: Austria

Organisation Name: Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Health Technology Assessment

Contact Address: Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for fuer Health Technology Assessment (LBI-HTA), Garnisongasse 7/rechte Stiege Mezzanin (Top 20), 1090 Vienna, Austria. Tel: +43 1 236 8119 - 0 Fax: +43 1 236 8119 - 99

Contact Name: tarquin.mittermayr@aihta.at

Contact Email: office@aihta.at

Copyright: Ludwig Boltzmann Institut fuer Health Technology Assessment (LBIHTA)