Neonatal Med.  2013 May;20(2):169-178.

The Establishment of the Korean Neonatal Network (KNN)

• Chang YS
• Ahn SY
• Park WS

Abstract

Although, recently in Korea, it has been apparent that declining total birth rate in face of rapidly aging population and rapid increasing birth rate for high-risk infants such as preterm infants, mortality rate of premature infants is still higher than that of other developed countries and the significant morbidities including cerebral palsy or development delay is high among survived patients. Thus, the substantial socio-economic burden caused by high risk infants became a substantial problem to us. To improve the survival rate and to decrease major morbidities of high risk infants, Korean Neonatal Network (KNN) was established by Korean Society of Neonatology with the support from Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and begins an official operation with a declaration for launching on April 15th, 2013. With base project of national prospective registry of very low birth weight infants, KNN would be an infrastructure for active and productive multi-center research for quality improvement of neonatal intensive care units (NICU) and development of Korean-style guideline or strategy for NICU management. In this review, we describe the background, purpose, progress, expected outcomes and future plans of the KNN.

Keyword

Evidence-based medicine; Network; Premature infants; Intensive care; Quality assurance; Health care

MeSH Terms

Aging
Birth Rate
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.)
Cerebral Palsy
Delivery of Health Care
Developed Countries
Evidence-Based Medicine
Humans
Infant
Infant, Newborn
Infant, Premature
Infant, Very Low Birth Weight
Critical Care
Intensive Care Units, Neonatal
Korea
Neonatology
Quality Improvement
Survival Rate