Parents are their children’s best advocates. They’re also those who navigate the systems we seek to improve. When we empower parents to partner with us, we can best understand their needs and respond with practical and powerful solutions. Nicole Hopkins, a New Jersey team lead for the NICHQ-led Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems Collaborative Improvement and…
Having a physician champion on board can be an important benefit for clinically-based improvement teams. The physician champion plays a crucial role when it comes time to make the case for other physicians to support an improvement idea. They also understand the ins and outs of the processes already in place. Wondering where to start…
Creating sustainable changes to improve infant feeding practices means sparking a social movement. It means generating a collective response to a complicated question: what is the healthiest way to feed our newborns?
In Bountiful, Utah, on Dec. 1, 2016, a young boy fired a gun into a classroom full of middle school science students. No one was physically injured, but there were other kinds of injuries. Aliza, the daughter of NICHQ Project Director Colleen Murphy, MSMOB, was in that classroom. And the shooter was one of Aliza’s…
When provided with proper treatment, educational materials and environmental management, children diagnosed with asthma can lead full and healthy lives
In theory, a child’s very first day of school is their first fresh start. It happens before anyone has proved better in the classroom, on the soccer field or in the hallways. It’s anyone’s game and every child has a shot at success, an equal chance to learn, make friends and thrive. It certainly sounds…
A key to making sure that teams are testing changes on the road to improvement is to avoid getting stuck mistaking an evaluation activity for a test of change. This mistake falls under a common pitfall of mistaking a task for a test. That isn’t to say that you should avoid evaluation activities at all costs. Evaluation…
Bedsharing can lead to longer breastfeeding duration. It also leads to more infant deaths. These opposing facts represent a major dilemma for those working to improve infant health. It becomes even trickier when we dive a little deeper. Breastfeeding also correlates with lower sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) rates, the most common cause of post-neonatal…
In the United States, 34.8 million children (ages 0-17)—nearly half of American children—are exposed to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) that can severely harm their future health and well-being. The implications are so severe that, according to a CDC ACE Study, exposure to six or more ACEs can lower an individual’s life expectancy by nearly 20…
From infancy, children rely on their parents to learn about and cultivate the habits and skills that will ensure their health. Yet parents’ abilities to provide this care can be inhibited by many factors, from personal health to environmental circumstances such as their job, community or economic status. And when a parent struggles due to…