Minimal handling protocol for the intensive care nursery.

Use of a conceptual model of nursing for the minimal handling protocol provides organization and a theoretical basis for nursing care standards. Levine's principles of conservation of energy, structural integrity, personal integrity, and social integrity provide a concrete approach for making nursing care judgments. Through individualized adaptation and implementation of the minimal handling protocol, neonatal intensive care nurses will be able to deliver high-quality therapeutic and supportive care in the least stressful and most protective manner possible to high-risk infants.