Improving Communication in the PICU: The Navigate Study

Parents of children admitted to the PICU often face challenging decisions. Research demonstrates deficiencies in communication in the PICU which could impact decision making. This study team has developed a navigator-based intervention call PICU Supports. PICU Supports aims to provide the following types of support to parents of patients in the PICU: emotional; communication (between healthcare team members and parents/families as well as among healthcare team members ); decision making; transitions out of the PICU (i.e. discharge transitions to a non-PICU hospital bed, a long term care facility, or home); and information. Support is accomplished by navigator engagement with parents and healthcare team members and the guided use of navigator supported ancillary tools provided to parents and healthcare team members as needed. During the patient's PICU stay, the navigator activities and use of ancillary tools is directed by the family's needs. Thus PICU Supports uses a predefined framework of activities and tools to provide individualized support directed by the needs of the parent and the patient situation. This research will test PICU Supports in the clinical setting. This will be accomplished by conducting a pilot study of PICU Supports at Ann \& Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago (Lurie Children's Hospital), followed by a randomized controlled trial (RCT) comparing the intervention, PICU Supports, to a control, parental receipt of an educational brochure. The RCT will be conducted at Lurie Children's Hospital and at University of Chicago Medicine Comer Children's Hospital (Comer Children's Hospital).