Development of new standards

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Since their launch in 2018, the European Standards of Care for Newborn Health (ESCNH) received much attention and several experts evinced great interest to support the development of additional standards within the existing framework. To better coordinate future requests and ease the development process, the European Foundation for the Care of Newborn Infants (EFCNI) has set up a step-by-step procedure, shown below.

  1. Need for standard: First, the necessity of the new subject has to be outlined and preferably supported with literature. It needs to be ensured that the theme is not covered in one of the existing standards or one currently under development (see below). The new standard should also be assigned to one of the already existing eleven ESCNH topics.
  2. Author team: Together with EFCNI, a group of authors who are experts in the respective field has to be defined. Within the author team, a first author who is leading the working group has to be named. Importantly, every author team needs at least one parent representative to ensure that the parent’s perspective is incorporated.
  3. Draft preparation: After receiving the standard template from EFCNI, a first draft of the standard based on current literature has to be prepared with the support of the author team. The first author is mainly responsible for drafting the standard in cooperation with his / her co-authors.
  4. Proof of content: Once a final draft of the standard is available, the chairs of the respective Topic Expert Group (TEG) are asked for proof of content. Any comments of the chair team are shared with the authors and if necessary, the draft is updated accordingly.
  5. Editing: Finally, the wording and layout of the standard are reviewed and edited by the scientific team of EFCNI, e.g. according to common wordings of the ESCNH.
  6. Chair Committee voting: If the chairs and the author team are content with the standard after editing, the standard is ready for a Chair Committee voting. In accordance with the original developing process, a new standard requires an 80% majority to pass the voting. Chair Committee votings are held only once per year and the next meeting is planned for Q2/Q3 2022.

Our experience has shown that the development of a new standard takes approximately two years depending on the topic and author team.

Please also have a look at our methods page to get familiar with the sections of the standard template.

For further information on the development of new standards or the ESCNH in general you can contact us via email at standards@efcni.org.

List of standards currently under development:

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Please click on the icons below to select one of the standard topics:

Birth & transfer
Ethical decisions
NICU design
Care procedures
Follow-up & continuing care
Nutrition
Data collection & documentation
Infant- & family-centred developmental care
Patient safety & hygiene practice
Education & training
Medical care & clinical practice