The designation levels are based on meeting the milestone criteria per established frequency over a 12-month period, starting with the July 2026 through June 2027 implementation period. Designations will be initiative-specific, meaning milestones cannot be “mixed-and-matched” if a PA PQC Healthcare Team is participating in multiple initiatives. Initiatives in sustainment are not eligible for designation. For the first year of designation recognition, PA PQC Healthcare Teams will receive a PA PQC banner with hospital name, initiative specific badge(s), a graphic for sites to display on their website. In subsequent years of designation recognition, PA PQC Healthcare Teams will receive initiative specific badges to add to their banner.
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Achievement: Established multidisciplinary teams that have demonstrated improvements in maternal and newborn care by sharing best practices and data in their hospital and community, with a proven commitment to furthering health equity goals and patient participation in their quality improvement work. Criteria: QI Participation, Patient Voice, AND Health Equity |
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Achievement: Established multidisciplinary teams that have demonstrated improvements in maternal and newborn care by sharing best practices and data in their hospital and community, and are dedicated to incorporating patient voice or furthering health equity goals in their quality improvement work. Criteria: QI Participation plus EITHER Patient Voice OR Health Equity |
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Achievement: Established multidisciplinary teams that have demonstrated improvements in maternal and newborn care by sharing best practices and data in their hospital and community. Criteria: QI Participation |
Designation Criteria:
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Milestone |
Activity |
Frequency |
Due Date |
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Milestone 1 |
Engage with your QI coach at least once during the quarter. |
Quarterly |
October 31, 2026 July 31, 2027 |
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Milestone 2 |
Submit an initiative-specific Quality Improvement (QI) Report Out in the Qualtrics survey, showing work related to implementing Key Intervention(s) |
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Milestone 3 |
Complete initiative-specific PA PQC quarterly survey in Qualtrics |
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Milestone 4 |
Submit initiative-specific aggregated data for the PA PQC process and outcome measure(s) through Qualtrics survey |
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Milestone 5 |
Communicate and celebrate your team’s impact in the PA PQC within your hospital and community |
QI Participation: Meet milestones listed below and maintain a minimum of two “qualifying quarters” for the same initiative during the designation year (July 2026 – June 2027). A “qualifying quarter” is defined as a single quarter in which the milestones are all met for a specific initiative (milestones 1 and 5 are completed at the hospital level and therefore only need to be completed ONCE per quarter per hospital, regardless of the number of initiatives in which the team is enrolled.
Patient Voice: Show proof of including lived experience voices in PA PQC quality improvement work by implementing one or more community and patient partnership interventions.
Health Equity: Show proof of health equity interventions in PA PQC quality improvement work that demonstrate a commitment to narrowing the equity gap.
Silver and Gold Designation Level Reporting:
- Work with your QI coach to determine an eligible intervention to meet the additional health equity and/or patient voice criteria.
- The intervention needs to be actively worked on during the designation period (July 2026 through June 2027).
- If you would like to be considered for Silver or Gold-level designations, you will need to submit a Designations Application outlining your quality improvement plan for your equity and/or patient voice intervention to your coach by August 31, 2026, and show proof of your equity and/or patient voice intervention through a Designations Report by June 29, 2027. The “proof” will be evaluated by PA PQC staff based on the plan to determine whether the QI work meets the criteria.
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