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Transition to Home was spearheaded by Dr. Mollie Warren, a pediatrician who works in the NICU at Brigham and Women's Hospital. She created the entirely virtual program, which has been enrolling babies since October 2021, because of her own parenting experience.
"As a pediatrician, we know that the families experience stress," Warren said, "but I didn't truly understand it until my daughter actually was in the NICU for several months."
Warren said she and her husband, who are both physicians, felt an immense amount of stress when their daughter was discharged.
"I remember walking into our house, and we looked at each other and we said, 'why on earth did they let us take us this baby home from the hospital?'" recounted Warren. "So I can only imagine not having the medical background that we have and being able to understand and navigate the medical system and be able to get her what she needed."
Now Warren spends her days at the hospital checking in with each baby currently enrolled in Transition to Home. The program primarily helps babies fed via nasal gastric tubes – which go through the baby's nose directly to the stomach – as well as those with additional oxygen needs, and infants born very prematurely, as young as 32 weeks.
Warren said enrolled babies are able to feed without the gastric tube in an average of 28 days. This cuts down on the amount of time babies spend in the NICU and gives families almost a month back at home with their child, not to mention savings on hospital bills.
By providing scales, working with medical supply companies, and writing letters to insurance companies, the program helps ensure families have the tools they need to help their babies thrive.
"Every family wants to be able to take their baby home, as soon and as safely as they possibly can," Warren said. "But also, that's a terrifying thought ... because when your baby and a family is in the NICU, they're surrounded by support 24/7."
The now-expanded program provides families with structure for daily monitoring through an electronic medical record system, including a scale to weigh the baby, flowsheets, and weekly virtual doctor visits.
Families pay nothing to enroll in the program and receive support for many potential financial difficulties. Brigham and Women’s Hospital makes the virtual program accessible by providing an iPad loaner system, complete with data plans for families who may not have wifi.
While Warren is currently the only Transition to Home doctor, she foresees the program growing in the future as they attract more clinical support.
"Luckily, we were actually able to hire a nurse practitioner just a few months ago," she said. "I think realizing that we can monitor and do things virtually has opened up a whole new world of providing NICU based care in the home."
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