The Florida Perinatal Quality Collaborative’s Director’s Award goes to an organization that has gone above and beyond to assist the FPQC in improving the health and health care of moms and babies in Florida. 

“Dixie Morgese and the Healthy Start Coalition of Flagler and Volusia Counties clearly exemplify this in the Collaborative’s effort to address the state’s neonatal opioid withdrawal crisis through improving the care for moms and infants,” said FPQC Director Bill Sappenfield.

The Coalition has made multiple contributions to the FPQC’s Maternal Opioid Recovery Effort (MORE) and Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) state-wide initiatives, including developing both initiatives by participating on the advisory groups, recruiting medical and family expertise, sharing their community’s successful experiences, and helping to develop the many community components. 

In addition, they played an active role in helping to develop a series of training videos to educate hospital staff and patients about various topics on maternal opioid use. They especially contributed by assuring that moms had a voice in both quality initiatives via their participation as family advisors on work groups, presenting at initiative training workshops, and participating in educational training videos. 

For more information on the FPQC’s initiatives, please visit www.fpqc.org.