PA PQC
Pennsylvania Perinatal
Quality Collaborative
Pennsylvania Perinatal
Quality Collaborative
The PA PQC is working to reduce maternal mortality and improve care for pregnant and postpartum women and newborns.
The PA PQC is administered by the Jewish Healthcare Foundation and WHAMglobal, and it is affiliated with the Northeast PQC (NEPaPQC)
The Pennsylvania Perinatal Quality Collaborative (PA PQC) was launched in April 2019, with funding from the Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs and the Henry L. Hillman Foundation as an action arm of the Maternal Mortality Review Committee (MMRC). Please see the reports, “Pennsylvania Maternal Mortality Review (2021 Report) and Pregnancy-Associated Deaths in Pennsylvania (2013-2018),” about the causes of deaths. You can also view a letter here from the PA Physician General. Over 60 birth sites and NICUs and over 10 health plans across the Commonwealth are actively identifying perinatal processes that need to be improved and quickly adopting best practices to achieve the common aims.
The focus areas for 2022 include maternal substance use (including Opioid Use Disorder), substance-exposed newborns (including Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, immediate postpartum long-acting reversible contraception (LARC), perinatal depression screening and follow-up (MOMD), and severe hypertension (PA AIM). Each focus area includes strategies and goals to reduce racial/ethnic disparities.
The focus areas for 2022 include maternal substance use (including Opioid Use Disorder), substance-exposed newborns (including Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, immediate postpartum long-acting reversible contraception (LARC), perinatal depression screening and follow-up (MOMD), and severe hypertension (PA AIM). Each focus area includes strategies and goals to reduce racial/ethnic disparities.
Work Groups & Advisory
The PA PQC was created in 2019 when over 140 people from all the regions of the Commonwealth worked together to standup the PA PQC through an Advisory Group and a series of work groups on maternal OUD, NAS, and maternal mortality. The members represented State agencies, providers, health system associations, provider associations, health plans, community-based organizations, researchers, foundations, quality improvement collaboratives, and advocates. To position the PA PQC to expand its focus from OUD to Substance Use Disorders (SUD) and from NAS to Substance-Exposed Newborns (SEN), the PA PQC re-convened statewide Work Groups to update its Driver Diagrams and quality measures for maternal SUD and SEN. The PA PQC Advisory Group is now chaired by James Cook, MD and Aasta Mehta, MD, MPP