New York State Perinatal Quality Collaborative (NYSPQC)

Improving maternal and infant health in New York State.

Who We Are:

The New York State Perinatal Quality Collaborative (NYSPQC) is a nationally recognized initiative engaging a statewide network of birthing facilities that seek to provide the best, safest, and most respectful care to NYS' mothers and infants. The NYSPQC was initiated in 2010 and is led by the New York State Department of Health's (NYSDOH) Division of Family Health (DFH).

What We Do:

The NYSPQC works to improve maternal and infant outcomes, reducing morbidity and mortality, by moving evidence-based and informed guidelines to action through intervention-specific projects. We work closely with state and national professional organizations and associations, community organizations, mothers, and other partners. The NYSPQC's projects are offered at no cost to birthing facility teams.

What We've Accomplished:

  • 97% of births in New York State occur in a birthing facility that has participated in a NYSPQC project.
  • 95% of birthing facilities in New York State have participated in a NYSPQC project.
  • 91% of infants were in a safe sleep environment while in the hospital after birth by the end of the NYSPQC Safe Sleep Project . This role-modeling promotes safer practices at home.
  • 90% of hospitals reported using quantitative blood loss (QBL) measurement by the end of the NYS Obstetric Hemorrhage Project, which is a more accurate way to measure blood loss during birth. This leads to quicker responses and a reduction in morbidity and mortality.
  • 5X more patients received education on postpartum preeclampsia, from 12.3% to 80.4% by the end of the Maternal Hemorrhage & Hypertension Project.
  • Use of a standardized questionnaire to screen pregnant women for substance use disorder increased by 77.5% through the NYS Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) in Pregnancy & Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) Project, which led to an 18.8% increase in new referrals to OUD treatment. Additionally, 92.7% of facilities implemented standardized non-pharmacologic guidelines for opioid-exposed newborns through their work in the project.

To learn more about statewide perinatal quality collaboratives, watch this CDC informational video.