This announcement solicits applications for the dissemination and scale up[1] of the most effective practices and interventions identified under the Home Visiting Collaborative Improvement and Innovation Network (HV CoIIN) and to research the development of specific tools and resources to advance quality improvement practices within the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting program (MIECHV).[2]
The purpose of this program is to:
Plan, manage and execute the scaling up of clinical and other interventions tested and found to be effective in different contexts within the previous HV CoIIN in alleviating maternal depression, promoting early child development as well as identifying related delays and linking families to services, increasing initiation and duration of breastfeeding, and enhancing and increasing family participation in the home visiting program,
Refine and evaluate a new set of evidence- informed change strategies using accepted evaluation methodologies, such as rapid Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles in alignment with best practices in home visiting implementation and the Maternal, Infant, Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program new standardized performance measurements, and
Assist MIECHV grantees[3] and local implementing agencies (LIAs) to build their capacity to utilize Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI)[4] as a tool for ongoing program monitoring and improvement.
[1] P Barker et al: A Framework for Scaling up Health Interventions. 2016. This is how the authors describe the “Go to Full Scale” phase: “This is a rapid deployment phase in which a well-tested set of interventions, supported by a reliable data feedback system, is adopted by frontline staff on a larger scale. The focus is on rapid uptake of the intervention through replication. While some adaptation of the intervention to local environments will always be required, there is less emphasis on new learning. Significant will, knowledge, experience, and well-tested infrastructural support and capacity need to be in place before moving to this phase.”
[2] Collaborative Innovation and Improvement Network (CoIIN) – a group of self-motivated people (or organizations) with a collective vision, enabled by the Web to collaborate in achieving a common goal by sharing ideas, information, and work. The CoIIN provides a platform for collaborative learning and quality improvement toward common measurable aims using rapid-cycle tests of change ideas. Key features include collaborative learning, identification of common measures, rapid tests of change strategies, implementation of effective changes, and the use of real-time data to drive improvement. The Home Visiting CoIIN (HV CoIIN) is a national collaborative to improve home visiting services and outcomes among low-income families with children 0-5 years old in key areas of public health: maternal depression, child development and breastfeeding.
[3] In this FOA, “grantees” refers to HRSA award recipients who received either a grant or a cooperative agreement.
[4] Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) -- an ongoing effort to increase an organization’s approach to manage performance, motivate improvement, and capture lessons learned in areas that may or may not be measured. It is an ongoing effort to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, quality, or performance of services, processes, capacities, and outcomes.
