Newborn Screening for Critical Congenital Heart Disease Using Pulse Oximetry: A Quality Improvement Project Proposal

Abstract

INTRODUCTION — Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common congenital disorder in newborns [1-3]. Critical CHD, defined as requiring surgery or catheter-based intervention in the first year of life (table 1), occurs in approximately 25 percent of infants with CHD [4]. Although many newborns with critical CHD are symptomatic and identified soon after birth, others are not diagnosed until after discharge from the birth hospitalization [5-8]. In infants with critical cardiac lesions, the risk of morbidity and mortality increases when there is a delay in diagnosis and timely referral to a tertiary center with expertise in treating these patients [9-11].