A review article in the June issue of Clinics in Perinatology explores the success of statewide quality collaboratives in improving the uptake of key perinatal interventions. Authors include Stanford clinical fellow Vidya Pai, MD, and CPQCC's Henry C. Lee, MD, MS Epi, and Jochen Profit, MD, MPH. While it takes on average 17 years for evidence-based findings to be translated into clinical practice, statewide quality improvement efforts may facilitate strategies for adoption on a multicenter as well as individual hospital level. The article provides evidence to show how neonatology has been a leader in the field of quality improvement and outlines efforts in several states related to antenatal steroid usage and congenital heart disease screening among other quality improvement measures. It concludes with a discussion about the strategies used by statewide collaborations and the barriers to improving care using a state-based quality improvement structure.
In particular, the paper spotlights the work of CPQCC which has been a prominent leader of statewide neonatal quality improvement and has served as a model for other states’ perinatal collaborative organizations.