Amidst the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, multidisciplinary professionals who support families with newborns prenatally exposed to substances from across the state of Colorado convened virtually on May 12th for the Spring CHoSEN Forum to share updates and learn from each other’s successes and challenges in implementing related quality improvement efforts.
Dr. Susan Hwang shared updates on the CHoSEN Collaborative’s hospital-level efforts, including the network’s growth to over 30 hospitals across three states and 2017-2020 data from hospitals within the CHoSEN cohort, including average lengths of inpatient stays for opioid-exposed newborns, percentages of opioid-exposed newborns who received pharmacologic therapy, and the racial and ethnic disparities that exist within those statistics.
The keynote presentation from Dr. Davida Schiff reflected on caring for the opioid-exposed mother infant dyad throughout the perinatal period through the lens of the HOPE Clinic at Massachusetts General Hospital’s model of co-located physical and behavioral health care for both mother and infant.
With plenty of successes to celebrate and areas for continued growth identified, Dr. Hwang anchored the group to the goal of everyone’s quality improvement efforts by sharing one mother’s testimony regarding her vastly different experiences delivering one of her children before CHoSEN and another one of her children after the implementation of CHoSEN quality improvement efforts. “With my son, I didn’t even get to go down and see him for a couple days…With her, I was able to engage from the start…This time, at least my ability to breastfeed, or give my milk, isn’t limited by anything like medications…I’m glad that the ESC thing is in effect, where they’re not having to administer (morphine), but I know that if she needed to, they would have it all ready.”
After hearing inspiring updates on successes and where there is room left to grow, participants engaged with their colleagues in smaller groups to discuss their own successes and challenges within specific areas of focus.
These breakout sessions fostered invaluable discussions on topics including the need for universal substance use screening during pregnancy, ensuring smooth transitions from inpatient to outpatient settings for newborns prenatally exposed to substances, and one hospital’s challenges with and solutions for moving care of substance exposed newborns from their NICU to their pediatric unit.
Attendees walked away from the day with inspiring ideas on actions they will take moving forward to improve their work and the lives of families affected by prenatal substance exposure as a result of their participation in the event.
Missed the event or looking to refresh your memory of the day?
- Watch all Spring CHoSEN Forum main sessions below.
- Download the slides from the Spring CHoSEN Forum
- Review the results of the ESC survey and an outline of the SEN Landscape in Colorado.
Current and Upcoming Opportunities to Engage:
- If you are looking for support with your hospital’s quality improvement efforts including opportunities for dissemination and publication, please reach out to Susan Hwang.
- To learn more about buprenorphine waiver training, training on stigma, bias, and trauma-informed care, or getting involved with the AIM Patient Safety bundle for Women with OUD, reach out to Katie Breen.
- To get involved in policy advocacy and other systems-level work that impacts substance exposed newborns and their families (including the Children’s Code revision), please contact Jillian Adams.