Committed to Healthy New Lives
Each year, New Jersey’s birthing hospitals welcome more than 100,000 babies into the world. Our collective goal is to ensure that each one of those mothers and babies has every opportunity for a lifetime of good health. That requires a broad and coordinated effort by public health officials, hospitals, primary care sites and other healthcare stakeholders – as well as engaged and empowered patients who are heard and respected as partners in their care.
NJ Perinatal Quality Collaborative
The New Jersey Perinatal Quality Collaborative (NJPQC) is an initiative led by NJHA’s Health Research and Educational Trust of New Jersey (HRETNJ). The NJPQC is a statewide partnership of state leaders, health systems, hospitals, providers, community agencies and other committed stakeholders working together to improve the quality and safety of care provided to New Jersey’s mothers and babies. Its work is grounded in eliminating health disparities and engaging patients and families while providing support for the implementation of evidence-based, data-driven quality improvement strategies. NJHA, HRETNJ and the NJPQC, the First Lady of N.J. and the N.J. Department of Health continue to partner in efforts aligned to improve the lives of women, children and families.
In its first five years, improvements in rates of C-sections, maternal hemorrhage and hypertensive disorders achieved under the NJPQC have averted 606 cases of maternal mortality and more than 10,000 C-sections. Read more in our “Path to Progress” report: Path to Progress - NJ Perinatal Quality Collaborative PDF
The NJPQC continues its focus on improving outcomes for mothers and their babies through educational programs, community outreach and partnerships with stakeholders. View the following webinar recordings for recent updates from NJPQC's initiatives and continuing education programs on important issues that impact quality of care and birth outcomes.
NJPQC collaborates with the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (AIM) to bring patient safety bundles and other promising practices to N.J. hospitals. AIM is a national data-driven maternal safety and quality improvement initiative. Based on proven safety and quality implementation strategies, AIM works to reduce preventable maternal mortality and severe morbidity nationally.
The Maternal-Child Health Data Portal is a secure engine that houses hospital-specific outcome data on severe maternal morbidity, hemorrhage, hypertension/preeclampsia, Cesarean-sections, opioid use disorder and neonatal abstinence syndrome and is the landing portal for structure and process measures related to the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (AIM) bundles.
The Garden State Patient Safety Center, a federally-listed Patient Safety Organization (PSO), will be conducting Maternal and Child Health Safe Tables focused on high volume, high risk, problem prone areas. PSOs create a legally secure environment (conferring privilege and confidentiality) where clinicians and healthcare organizations can voluntarily report, aggregate and analyze data, with the goal of reducing the risks and hazards associated with patient care.
About Us
Founded in 1918, NJHA has a long history of convening and educating hospitals, health systems and the broader provider community on patient safety and quality improvement. That tradition has powered NJHA’s decades-long work through its Quality Institute and as a federally recognized quality improvement network. Our focus areas include unnecessary C-sections; birth complications such as maternal hemorrhage; sepsis; racial, ethnic and geographic disparities; neonatal abstinence syndrome; and the new challenges presented by COVID-19.
Our efforts within the provider community have helped achieve significant declines in New Jersey’s C-section rate, greater compliance with care bundles and increased breastfeeding acceptance. But we know much more work remains to achieve further improvement, including reducing disparities in outcomes and mortality for women and infants of color.
Along with First Lady Tammy Murphy, the state Department of Health, Nurture NJ, New Jersey’s birthing hospitals and maternal health stakeholders statewide, we remain committed to making New Jersey the safest place in the nation to deliver and raise a baby.
For more information on NJHA’s activities to improve maternal and child health,
email: Contactus@njha.com.