Current
Initiatives

 

Leading change across the countrythumbnail image of Current Initiatives flyer

Working passionately alongside our partners for continuous improvement, we determine the best strategies, methods and tools to achieve measurable goals. Our work with multidisciplinary teams—from health professionals to community stakeholders and patients and families—enables deep engagement that leads to transformative change in children’s health systems. Check out some of our featured projects below.


View our complete list of current projects >

View projects by health topic >

Download a PDF summary of our current initiatives >

Community-Centered Hospital Initiative

To reduce health disparities among Black mothers and birthing people and their infants, NICHQ will serve as a national coordinating center,  partnering with Community-Based Organizations and state PQCs to engage with local Hospitals on topics that are high priority to the community, supported by CCHI Community Engagement Coordinators. Learn more >

Equity Systems Continuum

NICHQ has developed an evidence-informed conceptual framework known as the Equity Systems Continuum to describe and define the systems that individuals and organizations currently operate within. At the end of this initiative, organizations will be able to identify where they are on the continuum by utilizing an Equity Systems Auditing Tool (ESAT). Learn more >

Promoting Safe Sleep Best Practices

NICHQ collaborates with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) on engaging a national collaborative to identify and promote community and state SUID prevention best practices. Learn more >

National Network of Perinatal Quality Collaboratives

NICHQ works to enhance the coordination and communication of perinatal quality collaboratives across the nation, with the ultimate goal of improving health outcomes for mothers and newborns. Learn more >

Family Engagement and Leadership in Systems of Care (FELSC)

NICHQ provides quality improvement content for an initiative designed to enhance engagement with families of children and youth with special health care needs (CYSHCN) and individuals with lived experience, within the systems that serve them. Learn more >

New York State Birth Equity Improvement Project

NICHQ supports the NYSPQC in their empowerment of birthing facilities to: identify how individual and systemic racism impacts birth outcomes at their organizations, and take action to improve both the experience of care and perinatal outcomes for Black birthing people in the communities they serve. Learn more >

Supporting Healthy Start Performance Project

NICHQ facilitates the Healthy Start Technical Assistance & Support Center, which serves 101 Healthy Start grant recipients in 34 states. The TASC provides comprehensive capacity-building assistance on high-priority topics, such as safe sleep, fatherhood, and breastfeeding, and training for program staff on core competencies. Learn more >

Improving Care for Children with Special Healthcare Needs

NICHQ is leading a learning and action network (LAN) for seven SNAQ teams to support a high-quality system of care in Florida that serves all children and youth with special healthcare needs, regardless of insurance status and location. Learn more >

Improving Sickle Cell Disease Care - Hemoglobinopathies Coordinating Center

NICHQ, with partner organization Abt Associates, is supporting a Hemoglobinopathies National Coordinating Center (NCC) to help SCD treatment demonstration program grantees — including community and federally qualified health centers — address structural and systemic barriers in their regions and implement evidence-based SCD care. Learn more >

Addressing Infant Health Equity

NICHQ and UHC will implement a Proof-of-Concept project to demonstrate how a partnership between NICHQ, UHC, and Healthy Start can work with communities to address upstream issues that contribute to inequities in maternal and child health. Learn more >

Enriching ECHO (Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes)

The ECHO program investigates which environmental exposures “from society to biology” are associated with adverse outcomes versus positive health and resilience in children with disabilities. NICHQ facilitates and supports all data collection activities for Enriching ECHO and provide project management support. Learn more >

What People Say

NICHQ's team brought enthusiasm, structure and information about how to effectively implement change management to the project which has been key to the success of the collaborative. I continue to look forward to guidance and support from NICHQ for similar projects in the future.
Pamela Berens

Pamela Berens, MD-Project Faculty

I was very hesitant about quality improvement in the beginning but NICHQ reformed me. I have been working within our region and our state with health partners for years, but we have made more progress working with NICHQ through your learning process and collaboration than with any other group.
SmileyFace

Ed Dzedzy-Project Participant

I want to tell you how much I have enjoyed and learned from all of you at NICHQ. You are enthusiastic, supportive, smart and FUN. You have talked me off the ledge many times when I wanted to quit. You are true leaders and passionate about what you do.
SmileyFace

Lisa Kennedy, BSN, RN, IBCLC-Project Participant

Participating in NICHQ's Improving Children's Vision project has facilitated a rich opportunity to pursue robust quality improvement strategies to enhance early childhood vision health in Wyoming. [We] appreciate the expertise provided by the leadership team and the opportunity to share ideas and feedback with other states in the Collaboratory.
HannahGinn

Hannah Ginn-Project Participant

I am so impressed by the processes that the NICHQ staff use so well to enable teams in many different locations to learn and share, to practice QI processes, to support and inspire each other. NICHQ helps busy people find time to do important and difficult work that improves clinical practice, and to sustain the changes they themselves developed. I’m lucky to have been connected to NICHQ!
ElizabethCrockett

Elizabeth G. Crockett, PhD, RD, CDN, CLC-Project Participant