Vincent Smith MD, MPH, Malathi Balasundaram MD, Colby Day MD, Caroline Toney Noland MSc, Kari McCallie MD, Kristy Love
Colby Day: I think if you advance, it shows our core team. Caroline, who we could not do any of this without. We have Malathi and myself, and then we also have quite a few partners. Now, as you can see, the slide has grown over time, which is pretty exciting. And so we’re very grateful to have such wonderful partners as we start to grow this Family Centered Taskforce even further. And we also have a few grants that we’re very grateful for as well. We’re supported by Genentech and ProLacta, and then we also had a Gravens lunch session sponsored. And today we have 2 exciting presentations that you’ll get to hear from Dr. Smith and Kristy Love initially, and I will speak in a little more detail about that in a couple of minutes to introduce them, and then our very own, Dr. Balasundaram, is going to be able to give us a talk as well. We will have specific questions and answers after each of these sessions, and so please definitely chat in questions and comments as our speakers are presenting, and then we will have some time set aside after each presentation to be able to talk through some of those questions.
We could not do this without our family partners. We have 17 family partners who are very active with our organization, and then we also have our health care partners as well that we see on the next slide, who are 16 very dedicated individuals that are contributing to the task force. And we have a couple of exciting updates to tell you since our last webinar. Most of these are related to the recent Gravens Conference that was in Florida. I hope that many of you were able to attend it either in person or virtually. We were able to support five Family Partners to attend the Gravens Conference virtually and four Family Partner Small Group Leaders, as well as three Health Care Partners Small Group Leaders to attend the conference in person. In collaboration with the National NICU Parent Network, we are able to hold a Taskforce luncheon that had 70 Gravens attendees and provide CME/CEUs for this attendance. And we also shared a much of our taskforce work with the general attendees at Gravens on Friday in the form of a workshop, which was very interactive and a great way to hear how other people are doing things in their institutions, and to share what our actual members are doing as well. And this last bullet point is really exciting. So, a year ago we have 50 individuals that were involved in this taskforce, and over the last year, we’ve been able to expand to over 415 individuals, who represent over 200 NICUs from 36 states and 14 countries, all of whom are committed to learning more about family-centered care, and really trying to advance this culture in their units and globally.
And so now, it is my pleasure to introduce our first two speakers. Dr. Vincent Smith is the Division Chief of Newborn Medicine at Boston Medical Center and a Professor of Pediatrics. He’s a graduate of Texas A&M University, Stanford University School of Medicine, and the Harvard School of Public Health. He trained in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital and Boston Medical Center in the Boston Combined Pediatric Residency program. He then completed a fellowship in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine
through the Harvard-wide program, a collaboration of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Boston Children’s Hospital.
He completed a fellowship and health services research at Children’s Hospital and serves as the medical director for the AAP Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Program. He is an active member of the Massachusetts Medical Society and Society for Pediatric Research. And he is also a former member of the National Perinatal Association Board of Directors. In addition to parental NICU discharge readiness, his professional interests include families affected by substance use and medical care for LGBTQIA-headed families.
Along with Dr. Smith, we have Kristy Love, who is a mother of two premies. For over 20 years, Kristy has worked in the nonprofit community, providing health education, advocating for NICU families and the high-risk population. She’s collaborated with community groups, corporations, national organizations, and universities to improve outcomes for families of premature infants, babies formed with special needs and developmental needs. So please join me in welcoming our speakers and remember to chat in your questions.
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Bibliography
- Balasundaram et al. “Increasing Parent Satisfaction with Dis- charge Planning: An Improvement Project Using Technology in a Level 3 NICU.” Adv Neonatal Care. 2021 Feb 4.
- AAP Committee on Fetus and Newborn. “Hospital discharge of the high-risk neonate.” Pediatrics. 2008 Nov; 122(5): 1 119-1126
- Smith VC, Hwang SS, Dukhovny D, Young S, Pursley DM. “Neonatal intensive care unit discharge preparation, family readiness and infant outcomes: connecting the dots.” J Perinatol. 2013;33(6):415-421.
Disclosures: There are no reported disclosures