National Neonatal Benchmarking and Evaluation Programme of Care of Preterm Infants: the Follow-Up database

Prematurity is defined as born before 37 weeks of gestation and has a world estimate of 9.6% of all live births. One to 2% of the preterm infants are born before 32 weeks of gestation or have a birth weight below 1500g. This group contributes disproportionally to the burden of mortality and morbidity related to prematurity. Fifteen to 25 % of the surviving infants will present neurodevelopment or physical impairment. Main complications are cerebral palsy, cognitive impairment, neurosensory function alterations, behaviour, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorders and pulmonary insufficiency. Furthermore an increasing number of diseases in adulthood like cardiovascular diseases or obesity have their origin in the pre- and perinatal period. Prematurity combined with growth retardation favors appearance of those diseases in later life. Continuous improving of neonatal care is a major issue in public health. There is an international consensus on the registration of relevant items on the very preterm infants to make comparisons available. In Belgium the national neonatal network has been implemented through a Royal Decree (15-2-1999) describing the tasks of the Colleges of Physicians and depending on the Ministry of Health. The Colleges have to define quality indicators and evaluation criteria which have to be registered electronically. The first College of Physicians in Neonatal Intensive Care was nominated in 2004. Items are entered online or by uploading of files. Three sets of items are registered: neonatal characteristics, nosocomial infection and follow-up items. The follow-up database was created in 2015 as specified in the “Convention en matière de suivi diagnostic des enfants nes prématurément (RIZIV-INAMI)”,