On NICU Remembrance Day, we pause to honor the infants who died and those who grieve their loss. Each baby is valued and forever part of our community's story. We recognize the profound impact of these lives and remain committed to learning from every baby to improve care for those yet to come.

September is NICU Awareness Month- a time to honor all the patients, the families who support their every step, and the dedicated health professionals who provide their care. At VON, we're proud to partner with NICUs around the world to share data, learn together, and improve outcomes.

Learning about the future of surfactant with Cicely Fadel from @gatesfoundation.bsky.social at the African Neonatal Network Quality Congress. Such amazing opportunities! #neosky @vtoxfordnetwork.bsky.social

Salsa training at the African Neonatal Network meeting! #neosky @vtoxfordnetwork.bsky.social @gatesfoundation.bsky.social

The recording of our August 6th Grand Rounds, Evidence to Practice: Oxygen in the NICU, is now available. View this session and explore our improvement library of past Grand Rounds, including topics such as Eat/Sleep/Console, Follow up and Follow Through, and much more! #neosky bit.ly/4mfxRTt

Happy International Neonatal Nurses Day! At VON, we celebrate and honor the incredible dedication, expertise, and compassion of neonatal nurses around the world. You are essential to our mission and play a key role in improving care for our tiniest patients. bit.ly/4lAfjfJ

VON members participating in QI programs understand that a culture of improvement must involve every person caring for the infant. Our programs are intentionally multidisciplinary and family-centered, and these teams are dedicated to transformative and compassionate care. Learn more: bit.ly/4dSZQ7n

From reducing complications in preterm infants to engaging families and frontline teams in sustainable change, these centers are showing what’s possible when we collect data, benchmark data, collaborate across institutions and never stop asking how we can be better. Please visit bit.ly/4dSZQ7n

Our next Grand Rounds is two weeks from today! We invite our international newborn care community to join us for a webinar focused on oxygen use in the NICU. Join us 8/6 at 12ET. CEUs/CMEs are included for this webinar. Register her: bit.ly/4eZ6drf #neosky

In addition to our standard VLBW and Expanded databases, VON also has an ELBW follow up database. The goal is to obtain a complete description of health and developmental outcome status for ELBW infants at 18 to 24 months’ corrected age. To be a part of this database visit: bit.ly/ELBWFU

Join us 8/6 at 12E for Grand Rounds Evidence to Practice: Oxygen in the NICU. Oxygen therapy is critical to the care of sick preterm newborns. We will examine evidence-based practices that maximize the benefits of oxygen administration while minimizing potential harms. bit.ly/VONGrandRoun

Data submission and reports are complete for birth year 2024 thanks to our amazing VON members. Your efforts ensured 1,111 centers have finalized infant data! Nightingale has been updated with 2024 birth year Network and NICU type data and your center’s risk-adjusted results. bit.ly/3AXoNjm

Applications for the VON Award for Excellence in Quality Improvement open soon! Award recipients are active members of our QI Collaborative, All Care is Brain Care. To learn how your team can apply or join our QI collaborative, visit: bit.ly/3zogFrW #neosky #von

Happy Father's Day to all the NICU dads out there supporting their partners and children before, during and after a NICU stay. We know this journey you are on is unique and emotionally and physically trying. We see you and we thank you!

Ethiopian nurse-physician pairs mentored hospitals in standardizing assessments of RDS and optimizing the use of CPAP, which increased CPAP use and decreased preterm infant mortality. @vtoxfordnetwork.bsky.social #neosky #QI publications.aap.org/pediatrics/a...

Variation across health systems was 1.5% for mortality and 5.2% for length of stay among surviving preterm infants. @vtoxfordnetwork.bsky.social jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Most very preterm infants receive care in a multihospital system. Our recent research shows meaningful variation in mortality and length of stay, suggesting opportunities for health system focused QI. bit.ly/45ICC2n

Today we highlight the work of our NICQ Collaborative team from Merit Health River Oaks. They describe how a cost-analysis of their quality improvement efforts as part of the QI collaborative helped senior leadership understand the value of working within our improvement community. bit.ly/3F8csLN

Today's member story is from the team at Overland Park Regional Medical Center. They share how QI initiatives through All Care is Brain Care have improved their length of stay. Interested in learning more? Join us for an informational webinar 6/3 at 3pm ET: vtoxford.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Interested in joining our QI Collaborative? Join our webinar on 6/3 at 3pm ET to learn how your team can use your VON data to transform the care and outcomes of your patients. Meet with VON faculty to learn about joining any of the topic groups. Register: vtoxford.zoom.us/meeting/regi... #neosky

Today's member story comes to us from Overland Park, Kansas. Dr. Thomas Lancaster and Karen Kopischke, NNP, describe some of the practice changes they have made in their unit using the VON QI framework, A Sequence to Achieve Change. To learn more, please visit: bit.ly/4gilovT

At VON, we believe families are an essential part of not only the care team, but also the quality improvement team. Today, St. Joseph's Tacoma shares with us the importance of graduate parents' presence in the unit and how parent advocates in the NICU can bridge the gaps. bit.ly/4dSZQ7n...

Today we celebrate the strength, love, and resilience of every mother. At VON, we are honored to walk beside you - encouraging families, supporting connection, and embracing parents as essential partners in quality care.

Today, we celebrate the heart and hands of neonatal care: our nurses. Your voice shapes care plans. Your insights fuel innovation. And your commitment ensures that every baby and family experiences safer, more equitable, and compassionate care. #neosky

Presented today at #PAS2025 by Nansi Boghossian using @vtoxfordnetwork.bsky.social data: Active Treatment and Survival Trends for Periviable Births by Race and Ethnicity. Read here: jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Using data from @vtoxfordnetwork.bsky.social

Join us on Wednesday May 14th for a robust discussion on Eat Sleep Console. VON Grand Rounds are a free webinar and discussion series which seek to advance evidence-based quality improvement in newborn care. #neosky #VON bit.ly/ESCGrandRounds

April is HIE Awareness Month. Therapeutic hypothermia (TH) is the standard of care in high-income countries for treatment of HIE due to perinatal asphyxia. We examined the use of TH for term and late preterm infants from 2012 to 2021 via our expanded database. #neosky bit.ly/4e9AOjR

Neonatal opioid withdrawal is triggered by the discontinuation of placental transmission of maternal opioids We will discuss how Eat – Sleep – Console addresses functional dimensions. Join us on May 14 at 12 (ET). bit.ly/ESCGrandRounds #NEOSKY

The Case of the Year, presented by VON and NANN, call for abstracts closes 4/1/25! To be considered as the Case of the Year and present at the 41th Annual Conference, submit an abstract today! This interactive presentation will explore a complex and unique clinical case. bit.ly/NANNCOY #neosky

National Doctors' Day, celebrated annually on March 30th, recognizes the dedication and contributions of physicians. Our physician colleagues are a key part of our multidisciplinary teams and practice continuous quality improvement. We are grateful for for their leadership and compassion. #neosky

Today is Cerebral Palsy Awareness Day. CP is caused by brain damage that occurs before, during, or shortly after birth. Our ELBW database collects data and reports out information regarding the health of infants born within this age range. #neosky bit.ly/ELBWFU

Today we celebrate all the certified nurses! Part of certification renewal is to obtain a certain amount of CEUs and VON is here to support you! From our free Grand Rounds Webinars to our in-person conferences, VON has a variety of ways for you to earn CEUs. #neosky bit.ly/4gilovT

With patient safety in mind, VON participates in a variety of publications to help advance potentially better practices to the bedside. A full library of VON articles can be found at: public.vtoxford.org/research/ #nicu #n#nicu

National Patient Safety week is as important to the NICU as any other unit. At VON, we foster a culture of safety by offering supportive programs that help bedside providers provide safe and quality care, including a variety of webinars. public.vtoxford.org/evidence-based-resour...

Over the past 30 years we have come to understand that health and well-being are largely determined by SDOH. In a paper published in 2020, included are 68 potentially better practices that teams and individuals can commit to today to test and implement in the unit. #neosky bit.ly/4k9P1kQ

Follow through is different from the more typical practice of “follow up.” It is a comprehensive approach that health professionals, families, and communities must do to meet the social as well as medical needs of infants and families to achieve health equity. #neosky bit.ly/4kbevyf

The follow-through toolkit contains evidence-based guidance, interventions and other support to help teams address social determinants of health and help families get the best start to life beyond the NICU. To access this information, please visit: public.vtoxford.org/health-equity/

An example of health equity QI work with VON: Jacobi Medical Center increased screening for SDOH and resource referral from 0 to 70% among families of infants born before 35 weeks from April to December 2022. Our QI group: Promoting Parental Wellbeing and Health Equity.#neosky bit.ly/3ziGVnm

QI work to improve health equity: Doernbecher Children's did a project with a goal of: greater than 50% of all eligible patient families and >80% of those eligible with identifiable SDOH will have a Family Welcome Meeting during the first 7 days of admission. #neosky bit.ly/4dSZQ7n

Throughout various QI projects with VON, our teams have focused on improving parent and family experience and health equity during a NICU stay. Our QI Collaborative, All Care is Brain Care, has a topic group focused on Promoting Parental Wellbeing and Health Equity. #neosky bit.ly/3ziGVnm

At VON, we continuously seek to improve and share data on infants with congenital heart defects. Three ways VON does this: data in the expanded database, article contribution on heart defects, and following center trends via our membership survey. #neosky bit.ly/4e9AOjR

Our NICQ level of QI Collaboratives are at their in person kick off meeting this week. Today teams are in break out sessions lead by the VON faculty and include topics on data, research, and family engagement. #neosky #von #qi #nicuqi

Dr Karen Beattie, 🇨🇦 mom of 11 yo former 29 wk infant, with really powerful messages about partnering with parents at the @vtoxfordnetwork.bsky.social #QI kickoff. #neosky

We honor our brave heart warriors that we, as NICU providers, have the honor to care for. While VON started as a VLBW database, in our expanded database we track a number of congenital heart defects. Click here to learn more about this database: https://bit.ly/4e9AOjR #neosky

Research using the VON Databases supports quality improvement by describing relevant clinical outcomes, trends over time, and improvements in the quality, safety, and value of NICU care. The data shared this week can be found by clicking here: https://public.vtoxford.org/research/ #neosky

Data drives change. At VON, we believe in using data to help identify areas of improvement such as NEC and human milk at discharge among black non-Hispanic, white non-Hispanic, and Hispanic infants 22-29 weeks. To learn more about our database: https://bit.ly/VLBW. #neosky

At VON, we collect data to improve the health of all infants. Race and social determinants of health are associated with health outcomes and care practices like antenatal steroids and admission hypothermia. These measures illustrate opportunities for equity-focused quality improvement. #neosky

Every year in the membership survey, teams identify what services are offered at their center. Over the years, we have seen this data change regarding use of ventilation as well as changes in other services that support our families and health equity. https://bit.ly/3AXoNjm #neosky #nicu

Every year, centers complete a member survey where they identify what services are offered at their center. Over the years, we have seen this data change as more and more services are offered across all levels of care. To learn more about our database, visit https://bit.ly/3AXoNjm #neosky