Web-based Training Helps Connecticut Protect Newborns

Each year, by law, Connecticut screens more than 40,000 newborns for hearing loss and more than 40 genetic or metabolic disorders.

Because the number of conditions requiring screening is on the rise, the state wanted to find a way to provide medical practitioners with up-to-date information available about required evaluations. The state’s Department of Public Health and the University of Connecticut Health Center and School of Medicine have launched Web training for the screenings.

Doctors and nurses who use the free site, at www.genetrain.org, can gain continuing education credits and nursing contact hours. But more important, according to the health department, the training will help make early diagnosis and treatment possible for the 5 percent of babies who test positive to a disease during screening.

The online training sessions cover an array of issues: latest screening technologies; categories of disorders for which infants are screened; what to do when a baby tests positive; how to get information to and from screening practitioners; and appropriate treatment for newborns with diagnosed conditions.

“This provides another option and allows some flexibility, which is what health-care providers need,” says Lisa Davis, family health chief for the department. “They can keep up to date by doing a module of the training whenever they have time, rather than having to make the time for a three-day workshop.”