iNICQ Potentially Better Practices Collaborative (2007)

The Vermont Oxford Network is pleased to announce the 7th in a series of Internet-based improvement collaboratives sponsored by the Vermont Oxford Network. Potentially Better Practices Collaborative under the direction of Jeffrey Horbar, MD will allow participating multidisciplinary teams at your NICU to test and implement the Potentially Better Practices in a way that makes sense for your local setting. This collaborative will provide an introduction to the Potentially Better Practices identified and tested by teams that participated in the Network's NICQ 2005 Collaborative. In that Collaborative 47 multidisciplinary teams from NICUs in North America worked with experts to identify and test Potentially Better Practices, PBPs, in a variety of NICU domains.

We refer to these practices as "potentially better" rather than "better" or "best" because we believe that until the practices are evaluated, customized, and tested in your own NICU, you will not know whether are truly "better" or "best".

We do not expect you to agree with all of the PBPs. Some may be controversial. However, iNICQ will provide your multidisciplinary team with the opportunity to assess the strength and quality of the evidence for each PBP, and to decide which of the PBPs are appropriate to test and implement in your unit.

Prior to each session we will provide prework designed to prepare your team for the session. The prework will include resource kits with self-assessment tools as well as detailed descriptions and case studies of the PBPs.

The series will include six interactive, 90-minute Internet sessions.

Schedule (Conferences held at noon EST)

• March 6, 2007 • Session 1: Introduction to Potentially Better Practices
  Introduction, Development of the PBP's, Assessing the evidence for the PBPs
• June 6, 2007 • Session 2: Potentially Better Practices for Nutrition
  Nutritional Practices and Case Studies
• September 26, 2007 • Session 3: Potentially Better Practices for Medication Safety
  Medication Safety and Case Studies
• November 14, 2007 • Session 4: Potentially Better Practices for Improving the NICU Environment
  How the environment affects infants and Case Studies
• January 16, 2008 • Session 5: Potentially Better Practices for Respiratory Care
  Respiratory Practices and Case Studies
• March 19, 2008 • Session 6: Case Studies from iNICQ
  

What is included?

• One phone and one Internet connection to each of the 6 Webex sessions
• Unlimited number of individuals per site may participate
• Continuing education credits for participating MDs, and nurses
• Pre-work package prior to each session
• Structured post session exercises designed to help your team take action
• Dedicated iNICQ email discussion list