Our goal is to improve the health of North Carolina’s women and infants. Ambitious? Yes! Important? Absolutely. We are working to reach our goal in several different ways:
Serving Women & Families
At the heart of our work are the pregnant women, babies and families we serve. Our desire to enhance the care, treatment, and health of this vulnerable population is evident in the research we lead; the resources we develop; patient support we provide; and the leadership we provide to healthcare providers and community partners to assist them in serving this population’s unique needs.
We carefully craft person-centered educational materials to demystify the many choices families face in caring for themselves and their babies. We incorporate family voices into maternal and child health research through qualitative interviewing and community advisory committees.
Serving Health Care Providers
Health care providers are essential to our mission of improving the health of moms and babies, so we work collaboratively to incorporate evidence-based tools addressing the latest critical health needs into healthcare workflows. We work with local, state, and national partners to develop and deliver high quality trainings, quality improvement strategies, and patient engagement strategies enhance the care and treatment for women, infants, and their families.
Serving the State
We know that improving birth outcomes requires collaboration both within and beyond the clinic setting. The Collaborative provides leadership in North Carolina to several important public health campaigns, including child fatality prevention, tobacco use cessation, preterm birth prevention, preconception health, safe infant sleep, postpartum care and inequities in birth outcomes.
Providing Care Coordination for UNC Families
Our care coordinators help women with high-risk pregnancies and families with medically fragile infants to navigate a complex health care system, working with them to make sure they are receiving the best care and support available. Our care coordinators work with physicians who refer high-risk pregnant women to UNC and with pediatricians who both refer medically fragile babies to UNC and accept them into their practice at discharge. This coordination extends to hundreds of providers and specialists at UNC and beyond.
