Pennsylvania Perinatal Quality Collaborative’s (PA PQC) Learning Session

To help build and strengthen working relationships with local birthing hospitals and increase appropriate referrals to Early Intervention, Infant Toddler Early Intervention (EI) County Coordinators are invited to participate in the Pennsylvania Perinatal Quality Collaborative’s (PA PQC) Learning Session on Tuesday, September 14, 2021, from 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM. This is a great opportunity for EI programs to connect with their local NICU, birthing hospital, or even affiliated pediatric offices to increase referrals to EI. Connecting families to EI services is one of the PA PQC’s key interventions. Meet champions from the NICUs and birthing hospitals who share your goals.

The Pennsylvania Perinatal Quality Collaborative (PA PQC) includes 61 birthing hospitals/NICUs and 14 health plans from across the Commonwealth that are actively identifying perinatal processes that need to be improved and quickly adopting best practices to achieve common aims. As an action arm of the Pennsylvania Maternal Mortality Review Committee (MMRC), the PA PQC provider teams’ aims include improving the identification of and care for maternal Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) and Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS). Learn more about the PA PQC’s Maternal OUD and NAS initiatives via those hyperlinks.

• Pennsylvania Perinatal Quality Collaborative’s (PA PQC) Learning Session on Tuesday, September 14 via Zoom. Register. Please feel free to attend the entire virtual session from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., or connect for the EI presentations and discussion only.
• Office of Child Development and Early Learning from 9:15 – 10:15 am. Presentation to the PA PQC will provide an overview of OCDEL’s recently awarded Early Childhood Comprehensive System grant from US Health and Human Services (HHS) to better connect families to services and supports, discuss the importance of referrals to EI, and highlight one EI program and NICU pediatric team’s successful collaboration.
• Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) Breakout from 11:25 – 12:25 pm. This breakout will build on the earlier presentation by creating a forum for PA PAC neonatal teams and EI programs to discuss how to replicate and/or build on relationships and develop successful processes. The PA PQC neonatal teams will also be encouraged to invite their pediatric colleagues to this breakout. The facilitated breakout will explore:
  • To what degree does each PA PQC neonatal team connect eligible families to EI services?
  • What has been working well to refer and engage families in EI?
  • What have been some of recent challenges in referring and engaging families in EI services?
  • What are some action steps the PA PQC neonatal teams and EI can take to strengthen their referral and engagement processes for families?

The other parts of the PA PQC learning session will focus on the OUD Centers of Excellence from 8:45 to 9:15 am, and include a keynote on how to use quality improvement methods to improve health equity from 10:15 to 11:15 am.

Please contact Pauline Taylor (taylor@jhf.org) with any questions about the PA PQC and this Learning Session.