Search Results: MCHLine

Annotation: the Six Pillars of Community Health Workers as developed by the National Association of Community Health Workers (NACHW) to strengthen the professional identity and sustainability of the field. It describes Community Health Workers (CHWs) as a unique field of public health workers with core competencies who promote social justice and health equity, highlighting their community-based approach in building relationships to address social determinants of health. The document explains the historic and diverse nature of CHWs dating back to tribal healers, their cross-sector work in reducing healthcare barriers in underserved areas, their proven effectiveness across clinical and public health systems over 60 years of research, and the precarious nature of the profession due to challenges including low pay, discrimination, and poor legislative protections.

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Keywords: Community health workers, Professional training, Public health, Standards, Work force

Annotation: The project's goals were to: (1) Develop and implement structures and processes in defined community areas to plan and implement a family-centered, community-based health care delivery system for children; (2) develop data system capacity and function statewide to ensure family-centered, community-based primary care services for children; and (3) share experiences in family-centered, community-based system change in the area of primary health care for children with other State, regional, and national maternal and child health providers. At the State level, strategies were directed toward developing a system of children's primary health care delivery that was family centered and community based. At the local level, child health steering committees in established projects were to continue to plan and implement child health system changes in their service areas. [Funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau]

Keywords: Access to Health Care, Child Mortality, Community Based Health Services, Databases, Family Centered Health Care, Information Systems, Primary Care, Standards of Care, State Programs

Annotation: This resource provides guidance for businesses and manufacturers about U.S. government standards and requirements for full-size infant cribs. Contents include the definition and purpose of the infant full-size crib. Topics also include limits for surface coating and lead and phthalate content, testing and certification; registration cards; and tracking labels. The type of mattresses that should be used in a full-size crib are also discussed. Companion guidance on non-full-size infant cribs is also available.

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Keywords: Consumer protection, Infant equipment, Infants, Product safety, Standards

Annotation: This resource provides guidance for businesses and manufacturers about U.S. government standards and requirements for non-full-size infant cribs. Contents include the definition of the non-full-size infant crib, the reason for the standard, where the full standard can be found, which cribs must comply with the standard, and principal requirements for the cribs and their mattresses. Companion guidance on full-size infant cribs is also available.

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Keywords: Consumer protection, Infant equipment, Infants, Product safety, Standards

Annotation: This chapter of the Indian Health Manual provides an introduction to the Indian Health Service Dental Program. It discusses program organization, operations, resources, and reporting.

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Keywords: Administrative policy, Federal agencies, Manuals, Oral health, Standards

Annotation: This fact sheet from the Illinois Perinatal Quality Collaborative (ILPQC) promotes scheduling early maternal health safety checks within two weeks postpartum to improve care for new mothers. It presents data showing that 80% of pregnancy-associated deaths in Illinois between 2014-2016 occurred in the year following birth, with 24% occurring within 42 days postpartum before the traditional six-week visit. The fact sheet outlines key elements of these early postpartum safety checks, describes the aim and strategies of the ILPQC Improving Postpartum Access to Care (IPAC) Initiative launched in May 2019, and shares early successes from participating hospitals.

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Keywords: Illinois, Perinatal care: Postpartum care: Safety, Quality improvement, Standards, State initiatives

Annotation: This document provides guidance from the Indiana Perinatal Quality Improvement Collaborative (IPQIC) on standardizing discharge planning and referrals to ongoing services and support for postpartum patients with substance use disorders. It outlines recommended hospital procedures, including urine drug screening, monitoring for withdrawal symptoms, offering medication-assisted treatment, and providing referrals to treatment programs and resources. The document emphasizes the importance of a comprehensive discharge plan that includes outpatient follow-up with pediatric, substance use, and primary care providers, as well as newborn safe sleep education and contraception planning. Additional resources are provided for further information and referrals.

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Keywords: Guidelines, Indiana, Perinatal care, Postpartum care, Quality improvement, Standards, State initiatives

Annotation: This guide provides a curated list of online training resources designed to enhance public health strategic skills across various professional tiers. Topics addressed include effective communication, data-based decision making, resource management, cross-sectoral partnerships, systems and strategic thinking, community engagement, change management, and policy engagement. The guide outlines the rigorous evaluation and pilot process used to select trainings that meet specific quality standards. Additionally, it presents real-world practice examples and includes a self-assessment tool to help practitioners identify skill gaps and prioritize their professional development

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Keywords: Professional training, Public health, Standards

Annotation: This guide presents information on how to integrate blood pressure screening and referral into a dental visit. It explains how to get ready to integrate, how to prepare an oral health team to set standards for screening and referral, and how to put the screening and referral plan into action.

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Keywords: Blood pressure, Health screening, Oral health, Referrals, Service integration, Standards

Annotation: This article from Grantmakers In Health (GIH) describes a collaborative effort by funders to address gaps in postpartum care following the extension of Medicaid coverage from 60 days to 12 months after birth. The piece discusses how a workgroup of funders—including Pritzker Children's Initiative, Merck for Mothers, and Community Health Acceleration Partnership—formed in 2023 to identify opportunities for improving postpartum care systems. The article includes a visual diagram that illustrates the multi-layered challenges in postpartum care on three levels: individual, community, and system. This concentric circle diagram shows how issues such as standards of care, access to quality care, care fragmentation, and policy misalignment (at the system level) interact with community-level challenges like administrative burden and workforce shortages, as well as individual-level factors including awareness of needs, social and economic barriers, and fear of medical debt. Through stakeholder interviews, the workgroup discovered significant fragmentation of services and the absence of comprehensive care standards beyond the traditional six-week postpartum period. In response, the funders issued a request for proposals aimed at creating a centralized hub to catalog and connect postpartum care initiatives, with the goal of developing comprehensive standards and addressing what they term the "postpartum cliff."

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Keywords: Access to healthcare, Barriers, Collaboration, Funding, Health care reform, Library collection development, Medicaid, Policy, Postpartum care, Requests for proposals, Service delivery systems, Standards

Annotation: This report summarizes the second meeting of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department's Secretary's Postpartum Maternal Health Collaborative, held January 10, 2025. The document describes how six states (Iowa, New Mexico, Minnesota, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Michigan) implemented evidence-based practices over a 10-month period to reduce postpartum morbidity and mortality. Three states focused on mental health and substance use disorders while three addressed cardiovascular conditions. The report details specific state-level initiatives, including improved screening, care coordination, and follow-up processes, highlighting successful cross-sector collaborations between state health departments, Medicaid agencies, healthcare facilities, and community organizations. Key insights include the importance of standardizing care pathways while tailoring patient engagement strategies, leveraging quality improvement initiatives, and investing in data infrastructure. The document concludes with lessons learned about the benefits of cross-state collaboration and federal technical assistance in implementing facility-level changes that can improve maternal health outcomes.

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Keywords: Collaboration, Conference proceedings, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maternal health, Michigan , Minnesota, Models, New Mexico, Postpartum care, Quality improvement, Standards

Annotation: This fact sheet describes the newborn screening (NBS) disease prevention system in the United States, involving the practice of testing every newborn for certain harmful or potentially fatal conditions that are not otherwise apparent at birth. The document explains that NBS is a coordinated system between birthing hospitals, state-based newborn screening programs, health care providers, and families, with Congress passing the original Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act in 2008 and reauthorizing it in 2014 to support the State/Cooperative Newborn Screening System Priorities Program. It notes that while every state requires NBS, each state manages its own program and screens for conditions on the Recommended Uniform Screening Panel, with 31 states and 4 U.S.-affiliated jurisdictions receiving funding through the Health Resources and Services Administration. The fact sheet describes NBS alignment with the Title V MCH Services Block Grant through supporting long-term follow-up activities and infrastructure building for children diagnosed with conditions identified through screening.

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Keywords: Disease prevention, Federal programs, Neonatal screening, Newborn infants, Standards

Annotation: This report presents findings from the Maryland Maternal Health Innovation Program's (MDMOM) facility-based Severe Maternal Morbidity (SMM) Surveillance and Review program for 2024, analyzing 340 SMM events identified at participating hospitals following the passage of the Maternal Health Act of 2024 requiring all birthing hospitals in the state to participate in SMM surveillance beginning in 2025. The program uses a standardized case definition of intensive care unit admission and/or transfusion of four or more units of blood products for pregnant and postpartum patients up to 42 days postpartum. Hospital review committees analyzed events to determine preventability, identify contributing factors, and develop recommendations organized by the "5Rs" framework of readiness, recognition and prevention, response, reporting and system learning, and respectful care. The report documents that 32% of SMM events were potentially preventable, with obstetric hemorrhage being the most common primary cause, and includes demographic characteristics, delivery outcomes, and specific recommendations for preventing future severe maternal morbidity by cause and racial/ethnic disparities in SMM rates.

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Keywords: Maryland, Maternal morbidity, Maternal mortality, Population surveillance, Postpartum hemorrhage, Prevention, Standards

Annotation: This blog post features an interview with Dr. Christopher Forrest regarding the life course health development framework and the need for a conceptual shift from disease-oriented research toward a longitudinal science of health. It identifies the development of standardized metrics and a common lexicon as essential for measuring how health attributes are acquired and shaped from birth through adulthood. The document examines the potential for collaborative research networks and distributed data systems to overcome barriers created by disease-oriented funding and partitioned medical specialties. Discussion includes strategies for the Maternal and Child Health Life Course Research Network to advance interdisciplinary education and advocacy for a dedicated federal health development office. [Funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau].

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Keywords: Barriers, Child health, Collaboration, History, Life course, Maternal health, Measures, Metrics, Research, Social determinants of health, Standards

Annotation: This report presents findings from the Maryland Maternal Health Innovation Program's (MDMOM) facility-based Severe Maternal Morbidity (SMM) Surveillance and Review program for 2023, covering 279 SMM events identified at 27 participating hospitals representing more than 80% of births in the state. The program uses a standardized case definition of intensive care unit admission and/or transfusion of four or more units of blood products for pregnant and postpartum patients up to 42 days. Hospital review committees analyzed events to determine preventability, identify contributing factors, and develop recommendations organized by the "5Rs" framework of readiness, recognition and prevention, response, reporting and system learning, and respectful care. The report documents that 34% of SMM events were potentially preventable, with obstetric hemorrhage being the most common primary cause, and includes detailed analysis of demographic characteristics, timing of events, delivery outcomes, and specific recommendations for preventing future severe maternal morbidity by cause.

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Keywords: Maryland, Maternal morbidity, Maternal mortality, Population surveillance, Postpartum hemorrhage, Prevention, Standards

Annotation: This evidence-to-action brief focuses on Action 1.4 of the White House Blueprint for Addressing the Maternal Health Crisis, which aims to strengthen risk-appropriate care in rural and urban areas by encouraging states to implement the CDC Levels of Care Assessment Tool (LOCATe). The document explains that LOCATe is a web-based, standardized assessment of birthing facilities that allows states to see the distribution of levels of care throughout the state, supporting perinatal regionalization to ensure pregnant people receive care in facilities with appropriate capabilities. It presents maternal mortality data showing significant racial disparities, with non-Hispanic Black women being 2.6 times more likely to experience maternal death compared to non-Hispanic White women in 2021, and highlights that more than 2.2 million women of childbearing age live in maternity care deserts. The document includes examples of state maternal health innovations and evidence-based strategies, emphasizing that risk-appropriate care implementation should occur alongside efforts to address unconscious racial bias in healthcare to effectively reduce severe maternal morbidity and mortality.

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Keywords: Birthing centers, Data, Health facilities, Maternal morbidity, Maternal mortality, Perinatal care, Prevention, Regional factors, Rural health, Standards, Urban health

Annotation: This set of national health and safety standards provides information about high-quality health and safety practices and policies for early care and education settings. Topics include staffing; program activities for healthy development; health promotion and protection; nutrition and food service; facilities, supplies, equipment, and environmental health; play areas, playgrounds, and transportation; infectious diseases; children with special health care needs and disabilities; policies; and licensing and community action. [Funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau]

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Keywords: Administrative policy, Child care centers, Child development centers, Child health, Child safety, Children, Early childhood development, Health promotion, Infant health, Infants, Model programs, Standards, Young children

Annotation: These guidelines contain a set of standards to advance the quality and safety of early care and education environments. It is a companion to Caring for Our Children: National Health and Safety Performance Standards -- Guidelines for Early Care and Education Programs, 3rd edition. Included are new and updated standards on on safe sleep, handling and feeding of human milk, introducing solid foods to infants, monitoring children's development, unimmunized children, preventing expulsions, and availability of drinking water. [Funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau]

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Keywords: Child care, Child care centers, Children with special health care needs, Facilities, Health promotion, Learning activities, Management, Nutrition, Out of home care, Personnel, Prevention, Safety, Spanish language materials , Standards

Annotation: This report provides information for schools about U.S. Department of Agriculture Smart Snacks in School standards and how to comply with them. The report explains what Smart Snacks are and why they are important, which foods and beverages meet the standards for snacks, and how schools can tell if they are complying with the standards for snacks. Other selected topics include foods and beverages that are exemptions to certain nutrient requirements and how the standards affect school fundraisers.

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Keywords: Adolescents, Nutrition, School age children, School health, Snacks, Standards

Annotation: This toolkit provides guidance to hospitals and obstetric providers in developing individualized policies, protocols, practices, and materials related to hospital-facilitated postpartum care and education for pregnant and postpartum women with emphasis on high-risk women. The document presents evidence-based strategies to improve maternal health outcomes through hospital-facilitated continuum of postpartum care by coordinating and providing respectful, timely, and risk-appropriate coordinated care and services. It addresses the development of standardized approaches to promote recommended screening, prevention, treatment, and education services through a multidisciplinary team approach that includes administration, nursing, obstetric providers, neonatology, social work/case managers, community providers, and emergency department staff. The toolkit is organized by three key drivers: screening and arranging early postpartum visits, comprehensive patient education, and clinician engagement and education, with each section providing links to resources that hospitals can adapt for local use.

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Keywords: Florida, Perinatal care, Postpartum care, Protocols, Quality Improvement: Policy development, Resources for professionals, Standards, State initiatives