Announcement of the Perinatal Psychiatric Access Network

The Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium and The University of Texas System is excited to announce the signing of senate bill 8 by the governor authorizing the use of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to support the operations and expansion of mental health services for Texas children and families.  A portion of these funds will be used to pilot a Perinatal Psychiatric Access Network (Peri-PAN) in Texas to address the mental health needs for pregnant and postpartum women in Texas. The core components of the Peri-PAN are:·       

• Providing phone-based consultation offering guidance and case management to providers

• Assisting providers with resource navigation and referral services

• Providing training and education to psychiatrists and primary care providers on perinatal mental health services

To learn more about Peri-PAN, please contact tcmhcc@utsystem.edu

Obstetrics Project Update

The Obstetrics Committee of the Texas Collaborative for Healthy Mothers and Babies (TCHMB) is excited to announce the initiation of a quality improvement initiative that will be integrated into the current TexasAIM Hypertension Bundle.  The initiative’s goal is to improve the recognition and response to postpartum preeclampsia in emergency department in partnership with their obstetrics departments.  We are looking for Emergency Department clinicians and administrators interested in joining the  Recognition and Response to Postpartum Preeclampsia in the Emergency Department (PPED) workgroup.  If you are interested or would like additional information about the project, please contact TCHMB-PPED@utsystem.edu.

Newborn Admission Temperature (NAT) Project Update

The Neonatal Committee of the Texas Collaborative for Healthy Mothers and Babies (TCHMB) has completed two data collection periods for the Newborn Admission Temperature (NAT) Project. Of the 157 hospitals enrolled, 110 (70%) have submitted data for the most recent (second) data collection period. Overall, data quality has improved since the first data collection period, with more hospitals submitting data stratified by race/ethnicity. The NAT team is currently working on a report that will be published to the website in the coming month.

For hospitals needing additional support, we will provide weekly “NAT Office Hours” on Wednesdays from 12-2pm. Please feel free to drop in any time during these sessions for individual support. If you need the link for the meeting or if this time does not work for you, please reach out to us at nat@utsystem.edu.