Equity, inclusion and cultural humility: contemporizing the neonatal intensive care unit family-centered care model

Abstract

Existing NICU family centered care models lack the key elements of equity, inclusion and cultural humility. These models were conceived to support families during the stressful life event of an infant's NICU admission. Their development, however, occurred prior to recognition of the medical field's systematic shortcomings in providing equitable care and their impact on outcome disparities for marginalized communities; thus, they do not include cultural or equitable healthcare considerations. Given the significant neonatal care inequities for marginalized groups, incorporating the experience of these patients in a targeted manner into family centered care frameworks is of critical importance to ensure culturally humble and thus more just and equitable treatment. Here, we review past approaches to NICU family centered care and propose a novel, updated framework which integrates culturally humble care into the NICU family centered care framework.