Clinical pathway for pediatric parenteral nutrition.

The nutrition support team at Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford developed a clinical pathway for infants and children receiving parenteral nutrition (PN). Use of clinical pathways for health care delivery is one way in which clinicians and institutions are responding to pressure from managed care organizations to reduce costs and maintain or improve quality. This pathway was developed to standardize the process for ordering, implementing, and monitoring PN. Specific goals for the pathway are as follows: to decrease the number of patients receiving PN inappropriately, to decrease the duration of PN for those patients who require it, to determine complication rates, and to monitor outcomes of therapy. Such comprehensive monitoring will help identify areas for improvement. By developing and implementing action plans to address these issues, we expect to improve continuously the processes and outcomes associated with PN therapy.