Quality Improvement and Education
QI Programs, Online Courses, and Webinars
We facilitate quality improvement collaboratives for teams and provide educational courses to support improvement that fits with each centers’ local context and leads to better outcomes for infants and families worldwide.
We invite any center, health system, or group of hospitals caring for newborn infants and their families to participate in the iNICQ and/or NICQ collaboratives and educational courses by joining the VON Quality Circle. All staff at Quality Circle member centers can participate in the educational courses for continuing education credits.
QI Collaborative: All Care is Brain Care
Participate with two membership options (NICQ/iNICQ)
As neonatology has substantially improved survival rates over the years, it is more important than ever to do what we can to ensure infants and families have their best start to life beyond the NICU. To do so, we must safeguard an especially vulnerable and important organ: the brain.
By exploring evidence, pursuing data-driven QI, and implementing better practices, teams participating in the VON QI collaborative can ensure that all care we provide benefits the developing brain. Participate with two membership options:
VON Award for Excellence in Quality Improvement
Teams participating in the All Care is Brain Care collaborative (NICQ/iNICQ) are eligible to apply for the annual VON Award for Excellence in Quality Improvement, which recognizes teams who demonstrate dedication to our shared core values of quality improvement: measurement, evidence, families, equity, and collaboration.
Online Courses
Collaborative Spotlight: All Care is Brain Care
Quality Improvement Foundations
Responding to Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome
VON Grand Rounds
Free webinar and discussion series to advance quality improvement in newborn care.
This webinar and discussion series is supported by the work of dedicated VON teams and faculty and informed by the VON Institute for Evidence-Based Practice, and are intended to advance evidence into practice through sound quality improvement methods.
Open for all to attend at no cost.
What Makes VON QI Work?
Tackle the Biggest Challenges to Newborn Care
Our faculty of world experts in neonatal care and improvement science guide and motivate teams through in-person meetings and online classrooms. Teams test and implement evidence-based practices and apply continuous measurement to demonstrate improved outcomes.
Learn + Measure + Share = Improve
Collaborative approach provides unique benefits
VON quality improvement collaboratives and education are designed for the entire mulitdisciplinary team, including parents who are core faculty and contributing members of improvement teams.
Expert faculty engage teams throughout the course of each VON collaborative and provide coaching to help teams present measurable improvement. Teams participating in the NICQ collaborative experience even more intensive small group collaboration in-person and online.
The VON community convenes at the Annual Quality Congress to learn of new science, new data, and new approaches to quality improvement from leaders in the field and high-performing VON teams from around the world.
Achieve, Measure, and Sustain Improvement
Data to Benchmark and Stay on Track
Proven quality improvement methodologies such as the Model for Improvement and experience-based co-design (EBCD) in cooperation with The Point of Care Foundation help VON teams set goals and achieve success.
Assisted by our experts in data science, teams identify areas of focus and document improvement through continuous measurement and collaborative-wide data collection.
Supported with data for gap analyses, VON teams partner with their local leadership to align their work with organizational goals and then use advanced VON reporting tools to demonstrate improvement and return on investment.
Teams have demonstrated measurable improvement in neonatal care through hundreds of peer-reviewed articles and presentations at the VON Annual Quality Congress and other esteemed conferences.
History of Innovation and Proven Results
More than 900 teams over decades of improvement
Our collaboratives drive improvement across the entire neonatal community of practice.
VON teams helped improve care of infants and families affected by neonatal abstinence syndrome as the opioid epidemic was still developing; now the findings from tests of change have been incorporated into standardized best practices across multiple states and hundreds of centers.
Our partnership with the CDC has led to a 34% reduction (and counting) in antibiotic use in newborns, and VON teams have been touted as exemplary antibiotic stewards.
Our rich legacy of improvement has made VON a trusted partner of leaders in healthcare improvement and family-integrated care.
Continuing Education and Maintenance of Certification (MOC) Part 4 Credits
VON is approved by the American Board of Pediatrics as a MOC Portfolio Sponsor
Participation in our quality improvement collaboratives and online education includes potential CME/CNE/CPE. Physicians or physician teams who participate in VON collaboratives and meet the criteria established by the American Board of Pediatrics can earn Maintenance of Certification (MOC) Part 4 credit. See individual program details for the specific credits available.
VON offers a simplified and streamlined mechanism to earn MOC Part 4 credits for the American Board of Pediatrics “Performance in Practice” component. MOC credit will be earned as part of the routine and standard work of the QI collaborative teams who submit a poster and the American Board of Pediatrics Quality Improvement Project for MOC Attestation Form.
The criteria for MOC Part 4 credits have been established by the American Board of Pediatrics. All final decisions about awarding credits are at their discretion. Detailed information about Maintenance of Certification can be found on the American Board of Pediatrics website.
VON Teams Demonstrate Measurable Improvement
Improving Variation in Antibiotic Use for Newborns
Reduced LOS for NAS Care
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