All Care is Brain Care
Reducing Pain and Pokes
About this VON QI Collaborative Topic
Infants can experience prolonged periods of pain and discomfort in intensive care, which can negatively affect long-term outcomes and development.
In this topic group of the All Care is Brain Care collaborative, teams will learn from expert faculty and each other to explore and implement evidence-based potentially better practices that:
- reduce the requirement for discomfort and painful treatments
- increase skin-to-skin care
- optimize pain management
- improve the experience of intensive care for infants and their families
Is this topic right for your center?
Use these support materials to decide on your improvement topic and make the case for participating in the collaborative.
All Care is Brain Care QI Collaborative
“Reducing Pain and Pokes” is a topic area of focus for teams participating in the 2025 All Care is Brain Care collaborative. Participating teams choose a topic most relevant for their center, and then choose a membership level: NICQ or iNICQ.
All teams in either NICQ or iNICQ will benefit from:
- Webinars led by experts in the topic (5-6 per year)
- Interactive toolkits of potentially better practices and evidence-based change ideas
- Recorded webinars and toolkits from other topic areas in All Care is Brain Care
- Quality Improvement Foundations online course for all staff
- CME/CNE for all webinars and courses (including all videos from other topic areas in the collaborative)
- MOC Part 4 credits for physicians (with submission of a poster)
Newborn Improvement Collaborative for Quality
Includes: Small group collaboration and continuous feedback/coaching from colleagues and faculty, dedicated faculty team, additional “homeroom” meetings, in-person meetings (February 2025, Spring 2026, and two days at the Quality Congress in Fall 2026).
To join NICQ or request more information, contact John Lester for more information.
iNICQ: Internet-Based Newborn Improvement Collaborative for Quality
Includes: Virtual collaboration with topical community throughout the year and a 1-day in-person meeting at the 2026 Quality Congress.
Join as a Quality Circle member and participate in iNICQ, or contact Pam Ford, Program Coordinator, for more information.
Faculty
Mindy Morris DNP, NNP-BC, CNS
Quality Leader: Mindy Morris DNP, NNP-BC, CNS is the coordinator of the Extremely Low Birth Weight Program at CHOC Children’s Hospital in Orange, California. She has worked in the NICU for nearly 30 years as a nurse, a CNS, and an NNP where she has developed a passion and expertise in caring for the ELBW infant.
Amy Nyberg
Family Leader: Amy Nyberg is the parent advisor and March of Dimes NICU Family Support Specialist at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids, MI.
Erick Ridout, MD
Content Lead: Erick Ridout, MD is blessed to be the dad to two amazing kids, granddaddy to one extraordinary grandson, and currently serves the babies, their families, and the caregivers in the Newborn ICU in Southwestern Utah. He passionately believes all patients and care givers deserve to experience care delivery free of harm – a care environment where care must add value to reach the bedside.
Ginny Shaffer
Family Leader: Ginny Shaffer has been a Parent Navigator since 2006. During this time, she reenergized parent volunteer groups, increased parent support offerings every month as well as provide monthly meals. I was privileged to be included in the NICQ collaborative design team for the design and building of our new single-family room NICU. I am honored and thrilled to be a part of our NICU team.
Rebecca J. Vartanian, MD
Clinical Translator: Rebecca J. Vartanian, MD is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine within the Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases at the University of Michigan.
Sharyn Gibbins, NP, PhD
Clinical Translator: Sharyn Gibbins, NP, PhD, is a renowned neonatal healthcare professional with over three decades of experience in neonatal care. Specializing in neonatal pain management, she has dedicated her career to improving outcomes and quality of life for vulnerable newborns and their families. Dr. Gibbins has been a leader in neonatal nursing practice, combining clinical expertise with groundbreaking research to advance pain assessment and intervention strategies.
Laurel Kitto, MSN, RNC-NIC
Quality Leader: Laurel Kitto, MSN, RNC-NIC has been participating in VON collaboratives for over 20 years as a staff nurse, a nurse leader responsible for operations for a large NICU and, more recently, as a VON Quality Leader within the neuroprotective teams. In addition to leadership, she has extensive experience in NICU design and construction, new unit process improvement, natural disaster evacuation and transport team management.
Alexa O’Dell
Family Leader: Alexa O’Dell is a government auditor and is also the mother to 24-week twin girls, who were born in 2006. During the family’s four-month NICU stay, Alexa was aware her surviving daughter’s progress was being monitored as part of improvement work over noise levels in the NICU. Alexa has also served in various faculty roles with VON since 2011 and believes family partner involvement in all phases of the quality improvement process is essential to each team’s success.
Thiviya Selvanathan, MD, PhD
Content Lead: Dr. Thiviya Selvanathan is a pediatric neurologist and clinician scientist at BC Children’s Hospital with specialized training in neonatal neurology. She is also an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of British Columbia.
VON Award for Excellence in Quality Improvement
The annual VON Award for Excellence in Quality Improvement recognizes VON member teams who demonstrate dedication to our shared core values of quality improvement: measurement, evidence, families, equity, and collaboration.
Teams participating in the All Care is Brain Care collaborative (NICQ/iNICQ) are eligible to apply.
About VON Membership
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