OUR PARTNERSHIPS

PICK has chosen to partner with the healthcare community in order to bring about lasting system-wide changes in the management of newborn jaundice. We have many partners and champions that have helped us and believe in our mission. Some have been with us from the beginning and others are new partners, but all have embraced our mission to protect newborns from this devastating brain injury. Two agencies in particular, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (CDC/NCBDDD) and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), stepped up to the plate within four months of our first workshop in February 2001. JCAHO issued the first ever consumer driven sentinel event alert on severe hyperbilirubinemia and kernicterus in May 2001, followed closely by a report in the CDC publication the Morbity/Mortality Weekly Report (June 2001). In addition, the CDC presented information at a briefing to Congress in July 2001 on kernicterus and its emergence as a significant public health problem.

PICK also has established partnerships that will help us further our goal to identify and promote research on therapies and treatments that will improve the quality of life for individuals with kernicterus. Partners in this area include the Civitan International Research Center and the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical College of Virginia. We continue to work on the development of a strategic plan for research priorities and collaboration with leading research institutions.

THE KERNICTERUS PREVENTION PARTNERSHIP CHAMPAIGN

Our success in partnering with the healthcare community has continued. Recently the Kernicterus Prevention Partnership Campaign (KPPC) was established PICK has coordinated a new model of partnership between healthcare providers, public health organizations, and dedicated consumers to form the KPPC in an effort to collaborate on ways to prevent kernicterus. By working together and sharing resources, the collaboration hopes to eradicate kernicterus. The KPPC hopes to prevent all new cases of kernicterus from occurring in any full-term or near-term baby born in the United States by 2006 through a national campaign to educate communities and clinicians about the potential hazards of newborn jaundice.

Goal: Within the next two years (2004-2006), prevent all new cases of kernicterus from occurring in any full-term or near term baby born in the United States.

Objective: Through a nation-wide health care systems approach:

1. Educate parents on the potential dangers of jaundice and educate parents about proactive prevention strategies.
2. Include information on kernicterus in literature and classes for new and/or expectant parents.
3. Establish national vigilance and global awareness for a safer experience with newborn jaundice.

PARTNERSHIP MEMEBERS

• Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
• American Academy of Pediatrics
• American Hospital Association
• Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/NCBDDD
• Federation of American Hospitals
• Health Resources Services Administration, Maternal and Child Health Bureau
• Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Coalition
• Hospital Corporation of America
• Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations
• March of Dimes
• National Association of Neonatal Nurses
• National Institutes of Health
• Parents of Infants and Children with Kernicterus
• Partnership for Patient Safety
• Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey