For immediate release
Silver Spring, MD, March 19, 2021 – The Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) is pleased to announce this year’s recipients of the Newborn Screening Systems Quality Improvement (QI) Projects award. Funded through a cooperative agreement with the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), these awards will provide funding to support continuous quality improvement initiatives led by state and territorial newborn screening programs as well as support newborn screening continuity of operations planning (COOP).
In addition to funding support, awardees of the Newborn Screening Systems Quality Improvement Projects and QI Projects Supplemental award participate in a multidisciplinary collaborative network focused on improving newborn screening. They will receive customized coaching and technical assistance on designing and implementing their quality improvement project; support around data and reporting; and opportunities to share their project successes with other members of the newborn screening community.
A total of six project proposals from six different agencies were selected to participate in the third cohort of the QI Projects, with a focus on topics including newborn screening timeliness, implementation of new disorders, patient and provider education, and improvements to newborn screening COOP. Although each program has identified a unique project, all awardees have the shared goal of improving their state or territorial newborn screening program in order to improve health outcomes for newborn babies. The selected agencies include:
- Iowa Department of Public Health
- Michigan Department of Health and Human Services
- Pennsylvania Department of Health
- Tennessee Department of Health
- Utah Department of Health
- Virginia Department of Health
This is the third cohort of awardees. The Newborn Screening Systems Quality Improvement Projects collaborative is now supporting the work of 24 unique continuous quality improvement projects from 19 state and territorial newborn screening programs.
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This project (UG8MC31893) is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of an award totaling $3.3 million dollars. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA, HHS, or the U.S. Government. For more information, please visit HRSA.gov
The Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) works to strengthen laboratory systems serving the public’s health in the US and globally. APHL’s member laboratories protect the public’s health by monitoring and detecting infectious and foodborne diseases, environmental contaminants, terrorist agents, genetic disorders in newborns and other diverse health threats.
