Illinois Birthing Hospital Quality Designation Program with funding from BCBSIL Special Beginnings® Program
Recognition
Statewide recognition with a Birth Quality Designation Award for achieving Promoting Vaginal Birth and Birth Equity key strategies for sustainability and demonstrating reduction in NTSV cesarean disparities
Support
Mini-grant funding up to $3,750 and quality improvement support to help hospitals implement key strategies toward achieving designation criteria
Monetary Award
Monetary award of $10,000-$20,000 towards your OB Department for achievement of a Birth Quality Designation Award criteria. If achieved, funds will be directed to OB Department Quality Improvement (QI) efforts and other opportunities to improve OB patient care at your institution.
The mini-grant funding and monetary awards for designation are funded by the BCBSIL Special Beginnings® program and time limited with current funding for 2 years (2025 and 2026 awards). ILPQC will continue the Birth Quality Designation Program going forward with ongoing statewide recognition.
Review our Sustainability and Quality Designation Webinar from January 13th!
On Monday, January 13th, 2025 at 1pm CDT, ILPQC described our new Illinois Birthing Hospital Quality Designation Program. Download the Quality Designation Call slides HERE and the recording HERE.
Click HERE to submit the REDCap Access Request Form to inform us who will need access to the new REDCap data form to submit monthly Quality Designation and sustainability data.
Click HERE to review January Newsletter
To achieve Illinois Birthing Hospital Quality Designation, hospital teams will:
1. Submit monthly sustainability data for Birth Equity and Promoting Vaginal Birth (Data form found HERE) to collect information on progress towards sustainability and designation criteria, including:
- Participation with ILPQC
- Education of clinical team
- Engagement of patients and community partners to improve care
- Achievement of initiative aims and reduction of disparities in NTSV cesarean birth
2. Apply for mini-grants funding HERE by April 1, 2025 to facilitate your hospital’s implementation of key strategies as they work towards designation. These mini-grants provide hospitals funding for patient and community engagement and quality improvement science and equity training accompanied with quality improvement support. Eligible activities include Respectful Care Breakfast funds, Patient Partner payment, Mommas Voices training, training to support a Doula friendly L&D, and training for equitable and respectful care and/or quality improvement implementation. Hospitals can receive a total of $3,750 per year in mini-grant funding for various eligible activities.
3. Work to achieve Illinois Birthing Hospital Quality Designation criteria below. There are two tiers of designation. Engaging patient and community partners and achieving reduction of NTSV cesarean disparities (race/ethnicity and by insurance status) will be key components of achieving this designation. The goal for all hospitals is to achieve Tier 1: Birth Quality Excellence Designation. Hospitals meeting the quality designation criteria receive recognition and a monetary award. There are two tiers of quality designation. Tier 1: Birth Care Quality Excellence recipients will receive $20,000 and Tier 2: Birth Care Quality Star recipients will receive $10,000. Tier 1 components include additional ILPQC participation activities and achievement of aims on all outcome measures.
The Pathway to Designation:
- Submit the REDCap Access Request Form by 1/31/25 found HERE to inform us who will need access to the new REDCap data form to submit monthly quality designation and sustainability data
- Submit the monthly sustainability data form to track progress towards Illinois Birthing Hospital Quality Designation and key BE and PVB sustainability measures. Paper form HERE
- Submit a mini-grant application by April 1, 2025, for the opportunity to receive money for patient and community engagement and quality improvement science and equity training to implement key strategies as you work towards Illinois Birthing Hospital Quality Designation HERE
- Register for and attend the next Sustainability and Quality Designation Webinar in April (Link available in March 2025)
- Complete quality designation application by September 30th, 2025 (application will be available in Summer 2025 and linked when available)
Mini-Grants
All hospital teams are eligible to receive mini-grants (for 2025 and 2026) to help support the implementation of key strategies for sustaining PVB and Birth Equity work. Each hospital team can receive up to $3,750 total per year that can be used for various patient and community engagement and QI science and equity training.
Applications for mini-grants are now open HERE until April 1, 2025. Teams will be asked to provide a brief description on how the funding will be used. Applications will be reviewed in the order received. Receiving a mini-grant does not impact eligibility to receive the Designation award. The ILPQC team will expect mini-grant recipients to provide progress updates as grants are used and a report on how money was used once grant is finished.
In order to receive payment, ILPQC will register the Hospital as a vendor in the Northwestern University system used by ILPQC. ILPQC will reach out to the primary contact for the needed information, starting with the hospital W-9 form. Vendor registration and payment can take a few weeks to process.
The Illinois Birth Hospital Quality Designation Program application and monetary award application is separate and will open in summer 2025.
Activities that are eligible for a mini-grant include:
- Respectful Care Breakfast food (Up to $500 total for 2 or more RCBs)
- Patient Partner payment for teams with an identified Patient Partner (Up to $300 total for up to 6 meetings per year)
- Mommas Voices training for teams with an identified Patient Partner (Up to $450 per patient advisor)
- Training to support equitable and respectful care and/or quality improvement implementation for clinical staff including IHI training for QI team leads and members, equity video viewing and discussion for clinical teams, doula training and integration (e.g. Doula meet and greets, Institute for Healthcare Improvement trainings, and other Performance and Quality Improvement trainings), and Labor management support training and tools (e.g. Spinning Babies and Labor support carts) (Up to $2,500 total for training).
Illinois 2025 Birthing Hospital Quality Designation Program Criteria:
1. Actively participate with ILPQC
| Criteria | Tier 1 | Tier 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Attend monthly webinars (Sustainability, Perinatal Mental Health and PVB Coaching when applicable) between January and September 2025 | Attendance at 6 or more | Attendance at 5 or more |
| Attend in-person meetings | Attendance of a provider and nurse champion at ILPQC face to face meeting and ILPQC annual conference | Attendance of a provider or nurse champion at ILPQC face to face meeting and ILPQC annual conference |
| Submit data between January and September 2025 with no more than a quarter lag | 9 months of data | 8 months of data |
| Share data with your clinical staff | Implementation of a strategy to share quality improvement (QI) data progress with clinical staff (e.g. post data, share QI progress in provider meetings/grand rounds, etc.) | Implementation of a strategy to share quality improvement (QI) data progress with clinical staff (e.g. post data, share QI progress in provider meetings/grand rounds, etc.) |
| Collect race, ethnicity, and language data | Optimize collection of race, ethnicity and language data | Optimize collection of race, ethnicity and language data |
| Stratify data by race, ethnicity, and insurance status | Stratification of designated measures by race, ethnicity and insurance status with plan for data review and action to address identified disparities | Stratification of designated measures by race, ethnicity and insurance status with plan for data review and action to address identified disparities |
| Participate in quality improvement support | Attend 1 or more quality improvement support contact with ILPQC per year | Attend 1 or more quality improvement support contact with ILPQC per year |
2. Educate clinical teams, for both tiers
- Provide clinical team education yearly and for new hires that addresses patient experience of care with a focus on reducing disparities, such as:
- Unconscious bias (implicit bias)
- Respectful care Trauma – informed care
- Shared decision-making
- Reducing stigma and/or
- Active listening
3. Engage patients and community, for both tiers
- Engagement of a patient partner in the quality improvement team
- Hold 2 or more respectful care breakfasts per year
- Coordinate quality improvement efforts to engage outpatient prenatal clinics, federally qualified health centers and other community health clinics affiliated with your hospital
- Build relationships with community-based doulas, home visiting programs and other community resources in your hospital catchment to create points of access to improve referral of patients to these community resources
- Review labor and delivery policies and procedures to promote doula-friendly unit culture and strategies to support doula participation in the maternity care team
- Implement patient reported experience measures (“PREM”) Survey for patient survey on respectful care for 10% or more of deliveries per month or at least 15 deliveries per month
4. Achieve aims and reduce disparities (3 out of 3 for Tier 1, 2 out of 3 for Tier 2)
- Achieve healthy people nulliparous, term, singleton, vertex (NTSV) cesarean rate of ≤ 23.6%
- Achieve ≤ 25% NTSV cesarean rate for all stratified groups (race, ethnicity, insurance status)
- Link ≥ 70% of patients who screen positive for social determinant of health needs to community resources
Webinars
-
Upcoming webinars
- The next Sustainability and Quality Designation Webinar will be in April (date TBD)
-
Recordings/Slides