The S.T.A.B.L.E. Program Ensures Critically Important Infant Stabilization Care

April 1, 2021
April 1, 2021

When S.T.A.B.L.E. and HealthStream formally announced their partnership and the upcoming launch of their online course set for March 2020, COVID-19 was a distant threat. In fact, it was not until the day of HealthStream’s press release about the partnership that the coronavirus received the name we all know by now, “COVID-19.” Yet with the arrival of March, national shelter-in-place orders were issued, and an unanticipated new reason for online learning existed.

Who is S.T.A.B.L.E. for?

When asked which healthcare providers should enroll in this course, Karlsen said, “The S.T.A.B.L.E. Program is intended for any caregiver who will take care of mothers and babies. That includes emergency medical personnel who might be called to a home delivery or to help a neonate who gets sick after being discharged home. It includes the nurses, nursing assistants, and LPNs who provide care for mothers and babies, including babies in the NICU, in small and large hospitals. It also includes family practice physicians, pediatricians, and emergency room personnel.” Karlsen added that transport team members often require S.T.A.B.L.E. course completion for their staff. Today, the S.T.A.B.L.E. Program is used for outreach education, continuing education, and as a hospital requirement to work with perinatal patients— both mothers and babies and in the NICU.

Furthering the Program’s Reach through Online Education

Now, through a new partnership with HealthStream, the S.T.A.B.L.E. Program is available online. Commenting on the partnership, Karlsen said, “The S.T.A.B.L.E. Program was developed to meet the educational needs of healthcare providers who must be ready to deliver critically important stabilization care to infants. To make the program more widely available and easily accessible, partnering with HealthStream to offer an online version was an ideal solution—as their workforce platform has an immediate, broad reach to the nation’s healthcare providers, including their neonatal and obstetric care teams.”

The mnemonic Karlsen created in the eighties proved to hold true over time and still represents the six assessment and care modules of the program: Sugar, Temperature, Airway, Blood pressure, Lab work, and Emotional support. A seventh module, Quality Improvement, stresses the professional responsibility of improving and evaluating care provided to sick infants. The new, updated online offering covers the same curriculum as the traditional classroom course, but can be completed online at the student’s pace.

Guaranteed Training Consistency

Having the S.T.A.B.L.E. course online guarantees students are consistently taught the same materials. Karlsen explained, “As the author of this curriculum, it’s important to me to ensure the consistent delivery of the program material to every student. The classroom setting always has its own challenges, and sometimes part of the message gets left behind. With this online offering, I have been able to put all of the important aspects of the S.T.A.B.L.E. Program into the course. The S.T.A.B.L.E. Learner Manual served as my guide for developing the transcript. In addition, to stress key points or to allow the Learner to go more in-depth, I also included pages from the Learner Manual as PDFs.”

S.T.A.B.L.E Course Outline

This blog post excerpts an article, “The S.T.A.B.L.E. Program’s Timely Transition to Online Learning: An Interview with Founder Dr. Kristine Karlsen.” The article also includes:

  • S.T.A.B.L.E.’s Informal Neonatal Transport Education Beginnings
  • Parallel Growth—S.T.A.B.L.E. Program and the Need for Stabilization Education
  • What’s Next for Infant Stabilization Education

Learn more about infant stabilization education by clicking here. 

S.T.A.B.L.E. embodies HealthStream’s commitment to helping clinicians achieve better outcomes in myriad ways, from higher quality, evidence-based perinatal care to decreasing emergency department errors that can have a serious patient impact.