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National Initiative to Reduce Infant Mortality Extended

infant health

Doctor Making Infant SmileNICHQ’s flagship collaborative improvement and innovation network (CoIIN) initiative focused on reducing infant mortality rates, known as the Infant Mortality CoIIN, has been extended by one year, through September 2017. The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) prolonged their funded initiative to support states in their improvement efforts including data collection and the dissemination of lessons learned. NICHQ will remain the lead organization for quality improvement and technical assistance for the initiative. 

Infant Mortality CoIIN is a national, multiyear initiative that aims to reduce the U.S. infant mortality rate and improve birth outcomes by engaging federal, state and local leaders, public and private agencies, healthcare professionals, and communities in quality improvement practices and collaborative learning. The initiative has six strategic areas that it focuses on: safe sleep practices, smoking cessation, preconception and interconception care, perinatal regionalization, prevention of pre- and early-term birth, and social determinants of health.

“Convening diverse stakeholders at multiple levels from around the country allows us to address infant mortality through content expertise and collaboration,” says Scott D. Berns, MD, MPH, FAAP, president and CEO of NICHQ. “The extension ensures that IM CoIIN teams can implement practices and interpret data to learn what changes lead to sustainable improvements.”

In the Infant Mortality CoIIN, NICHQ supports participants using a combination of the collective impact framework and the breakthrough series model. Teams from every state and region connect with each other, report data, share expertise and engage in peer-to-peer and expert mentorship through virtual tools, including NICHQ’s Collaboratory. NICHQ will continue in 2017 to provide the data reporting infrastructure, online community and technical assistance to facilitate quality improvement efforts among state teams. 

“As states continue to implement changes to their maternal and infant care systems and share data, we’ll gain an even more in-depth understanding on how to improve infant health outcomes and reduce infant mortality,” says Michael Lu, MD, MPH, associate administrator at the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB), which partners with NICHQ on the Infant Mortality CoIIN. “Because the Infant Mortality CoIIN is a national initiative, states support each other and solve problems through partnership; the additional year should allow teams to make even greater progress and identify new opportunities for change.”

To learn more about the Infant Mortality CoIIN, visit www.nichq.org/IMCoIIN.

This initiative is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under Grant # UF3MC26524 Providing Support for the Collaborative Improvement and Innovation Network (CoIIN) to Reduce Infant Mortality for $2,918,909 (for this year 9/30/15 – 9/29/16). This information or content and conclusions are those of the author and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.