Updates

November has been a busy month for the NAS Initiative. Several PQCNC teams attended the Vermont Oxford Network (VON) conference in Chicago and presented and/or had posters on display.  We at PQCNC are proud of the great work of North Carolina hospitals.  Meanwhile the NAS Expert Team has been hard at work in shaping the Action Plan and Data Collection Tool for the next phase of the work.  Both should be completed in the next few weeks and we're inviting hospitals not currently participating to come onboard with this next phase.

Thanks to the work of each participating institution we have learned a great deal about Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome in North Carolina and the myriad issues surrounding standardizing and improving care. 

We are beginning the development of the next phase of the NAS initiative. We have learned much and look forward to receiving your input as we begin the design of the next NAS phase action plan and metrics. You do not need to be an expert physician or nurse to serve on the NAS Expert Team. What we require is a commitment to attend Expert Team  meetings, an interest in the issue of NAS and a willingness to review recommended background material for the project.  Meetings will be conducted via webinar and perhaps once in person over the next three months. We look forward to patients, families, providers of all types, public health officials, hospital administrators, health system executives and others participating in this work. It is the intention that NAS also serves you, your families, your facilities and your state. We need your input. Join us!

We’re down to the last month and a half of this phase of effort with teams still hard at work at PDSA cycles. The August webinar will focus on the last of the team presentations and on September 2nd we will hold the final Learning Session for this phase of the initiative at the McKimmon Center in Raleigh, looking at outcomes, reviewing the data, and sharing lessons learned with one another.

PQCNC teams from across the state came together last week for the CMOP/NAS/PFE2 Learning Session. Teams from all three initiatives spent time learning together in the morning, with presentations on initiative progress so far, a discussion of perinatal quality in a world of value-based care , and a patient panel.  Teams then split off in the afternoon to focus on content specific to their work. The NAS teams shared their current progress in the initiative, listened to a presentation on education implementation using a system wide approach, then discussed next steps and planned PDSAs to try when they returned home.