Dr. King's timeless message reminds us that advocacy and action for better health outcomes can't wait. VON's community of clinicians answers that call, building a brighter future for babies and their families. Learn more about our health equity work, visit public.vtoxford.org/health-equit.

VON is a proud sponsor of the Delphi Conference and will have a booth in the exhibitor area. Stop by and see us...we can't wait to chat with you! #DelphiConference2026 #NICUPodcast #Neonatology

Today we recognize award recipient Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. In an effort to reduce painful procedures and the number of pokes an infant receives during the first 14 days of life, the team implemented consolidated labs and the use of transcutaneous monitoring to limit the lab draws.

Today we share the work of Peyton Manning Children's Hospital. With a goal of reducing severe IVH in infants born less than 27 weeks, the multidisciplinary team implemented a neuroprotective care bundle to include improvements during the antenatal, delivery, admission, and NICU stay time periods.

New from @vtoxfordnetwork.bsky.social: Evaluation of the Ethiopian Neonatal Network, one of the first low-income country neonatal QI communities, with important improvements in survival. Open access: gh.bmj.com/content/11/1... #neosky

Announcing the 8 recipients of the 2025 VON Award for Excellence in Quality Improvement! We recognize multidisciplinary teams, including family partners, who demonstrate dedication to QI. We will showcase QI posters here over the next few weeks. Join us for ‘26 by visiting bit.ly/3WV67bR

That's a wrap on year 3 of the All Care is Brain Care QI Collaborative! We are so proud of the teams who joined us and all the hard work they did to improve the care and outcomes of infants and their families in the NICU. Want to join us..2026 enrollment is now open! #neosky bit.ly/3WV67bR

2025 was another amazing year at VON and we are so grateful to all our members who work each and every day to improve the lives of infants and their families. We are so excited for 2026...especially the return of the VON Quality Conference in Chicago Nov 5-8! #neosky bit.ly/VONQC

From the VON team to you and your team, we hope your holiday season is filled with friends, family, community, and tradition. Happy Holidays.

Dr. Kaplan's #1: Early wins! Across the year, teams are demonstrating real, measurable progress: fewer lab draws, better documentation of pain score, and creative tracking of sleep interruptions or other neuroprotective care processes. Small wins today drive the big improvements of tomorrow. #neosky

Dr. Kaplan, VON faculty, outlined a "Top 10 List" to show all the learnings from the year. #2: Teams are tackling outcomes that are hard to influence—but important for babies and families. Rather than avoiding hard-to-measure areas like pain, pokes, and parental wellbeing, they’re leaning in.

#3: When observations are limited, plotting subgroups monthly can challenge traditional run and control charts—especially when many points fall at 0 or 100. In these cases, G-charts can help by tracking the number of patients between rare events, making patterns clearer and easier to act on. #neosky

#4 on Dr. Kaplan's list: When outcomes fail to improve, it’s a signal to revisit the team’s theory of change—and update the driver diagram accordingly. As teams test interventions, the realities of workflow, timing, and bottlenecks often reveal gaps in the framework. #neosky bit.ly/3WV67bR

In Nov., Dr. Kaplan, made a good ol’ Top 10 List about lessons from the year. The EMR is powerful, giving real time data to identify gaps, monitor processes, and measure change. Even concepts like Reducing Pain & Pokes become measurable when teams track labs, PIV attempts, or pain assessments.

Dr. Kaplan's #6: Rational subgrouping organizes data in a way that makes each subgroup as similar as possible-so signals of change are easier to detect in practice this might mean grouping data by factors such as race, location, diagnosis, or even shift depending on what influences the process.

Stratifying data involves organizing data into groups. Shown here, overall KMC rates improved from 33% to 52%. When the team stratified by primary language, they revealed an equity-focused improvement opportunity that averages alone would have obscured. #neosky bit.ly/3WV67bR

Dr. Heather Kaplan, VON faculty member, outlined a "Top 10 List" to show QI learnings from the year. Measurement is essential to every PDSA cycle, providing both qualitative and quantitative data needed to determine whether a change achieved its intended effect. bit.ly/3WV67bR #neosky

Dr. Heather Kaplan's, VON faculty member, "Top 10 List" highlights QI learnings from the year. #9: A Pareto chart combines bar and line graphs to highlight factors with the greatest impact. Teams can focus QI efforts on the vital few items most in need of attention. bit.ly/3WV67bR #neosky

Dr. Heather Kaplan, VON faculty member, outlined an old-fashioned "Top 10 List" to highlight key learnings from the year. Qualitative data captures the “why” behind the numbers—insights observed but not measured. It adds essential context to project findings. #neosky bit.ly/3WV67bR

The VON team is heading to DC next week to the Hot Topics in Neonatology conference. We'd love to chat with you about all our programs including. We will be at booth 33 all week. Be sure to stop by!

From the VON Team to your team, we are grateful for the work each and every one of you do to collect your data and work to improve the outcomes of infants worldwide. Happy Thanksgiving.

Congratulations to Dr. Danielle Ehret, VON's Chief Medical Officer and Director of Global Health, who received the Marie McCormick lectureship. Presented by her collegues, Dr. DeWayne Pursley and Dr. John Zupancic, Dr. Ehret became the 2nd VON team member to receive this award. Congratulations!

November is World Prematurity Awareness month-a time to honor every baby born too soon and the families and care teams who walk withthem. We're committed to improving outcomes for premature infants through shared data, collaboration, and learning across our global community. bit.ly/4lAfjfJ.

This World Prematurity Day, we celebrate incremental gains in neonatal care and recognize the strength of premature babies. Data comes from 50,000 very low birth weight or very preterm infants in over 1,100 centers worldwide born in 2024. #neosky #VON bit.ly/VLBW

Let's learn more about VON's quality improvement process! The collaboratives are designed for the entire multidisciplinary team, including parents who are core faculty and contributing members of improvement teams. #neosky #von bit.ly/3WV67bR

Join us Wednesday, Nov. 12 at 12ET for a discussion on the NICU environment. Faculty, including Robert White, MD; John Zupancic, MD, MS, ScD; Roger F. Soll, MD; Danielle Ehret, MD, MPH, will discuss how infants are impacted by the sensory features of their care environment. #neosky bit.ly/43gdvlQ

A little known, yet fun fact about the VON database, is that any NICU can participate, regardless of level. In fact, in Nightingale, our online reporting system, you can select to compare your data specifically to other Level II, III, or IV NICUs. bit.ly/3AXoNjm

Now that’s something to scream about! Collecting data is the beginning. The real magic happens when teams use it to drive quality improvement. VON helps NICUs around the world transform numbers into knowledge and knowledge into action—because no team should face their data alone. bit.ly/4dSZQ7n

Here’s the truth: The VON Quality Congress will return in 2026, bringing back the community of learning, innovation, and collaboration that has always defined our worldwide community. Mark the dates November 5-8, 2026 in Chicago and watch for details! public.vtoxford.org/annual-quali...

The VON team had an amazing time at the @jenscongress.bsky.social conference in Belgrade, Serbia including a great presentation from @erikamedwards.bsky.social and presentations from members of our Global Health team. #neosky

The VON team is excited to see you at the jENS conference this week! In addition to hearing about all our programs at booth 40, VON team members and Global Health partners will be presenting in a variety of ways. #neosky

@vtoxfordnetwork.bsky.social with the African Neonatal Network and P-95, and an investment from the Gates Foundation, has launched the Surfactant Administered via Supraglottic airway versus InSurE (SASI) Trial in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Nigeria. To read more, please visit bit.ly/4gUIDN1 #neosky

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