The National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management (NCHAM) began facilitating the Unite Newborn Screening Learning Community (LC) designed to increase collaboration between newborn screening programs, with funding from the Association of Public Health Laboratories. 

Teams from Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, and South Dakota were selected to participate, each team consisted of two staff (one EHDI and one DBS), and two parents (one from EHDI and one from DBS). Through system mapping, each state team looked at potential areas of improvement that they could collaboratively address. Using Quality Improvement (QI) methodology, teams were able to develop aims, measures, and strategies that were then tested in an effort to identify promising practices for current and futures collaborative work. 

During the NCHAM hosted webinar, the presentation highlighted the process of building an improvement team, determining a specific project (aim) to work on together, identify measures to access progress, steps for how to test and implement strategies, and challenges and successes encountered. 

Participants will be able to:

• List advantages of brining newborn screening programs with family representation from each program together.
• Identify promising practices from participating states in the LC that can be adapted for other states.

Facilitators: Allyson Ward and Mandy Jay, NCHAM

Presenters: Representatives from EHDI and DBS programs in Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, and South Dakota

To watch the recorded webinar, click here.