Both Meriter Hospital and St. Mary’s Hospital have had ward-style NICUs since they opened the units in the late 1960s.Kristin Lutz, an assistant professor in the UW-Madison School of Nursing who studies families with preterm and multiple birth babies, said many parents describe ward-style NICUs as “fishbowls.”St. Mary’s Hospital is following closely in Meriter’s footsteps.One of the challenges of designing the new units has been balancing privacy with close care, since one advantage of the ward setting was that staff members were always just steps away from any baby in need.
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