NEWS

Happy birthday, achia!

ACHIA celebrates 10 years and shares reflections from past
participants

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Alabama Child Health Improvement Alliance (ACHIA). Established in 2014, ACHIA fosters a culture of quality improvement (QI) in pediatric care to support optimal health outcomes for children and youth in Alabama. ACHIA QI collaboratives help practices elevate care by providing the following:

• Educational content on evidence-based medicine from state and national experts

• Key drivers of excellent care to identify gaps in practice
workflows

• Measures to assess whether change ideas tested by the

practice lead to anticipated improvements

• QI coaching to overcome barriers to best practices

Why participate in ACHIA?

The commitment to practicing quality medicine is the
primary reason pediatricians participate in this program. As a practical matter, participants also value the way in which participation supports Patient Centered Medical Home requirements as well as the American Board of Pediatrics Maintenance of Certification Part 4 QI standards.

Practices who participate for the first time may be surprised by the benefits they experience. QI posits that positive change comes from improving the system. For the collaborative, each practice brings a team representing different aspects of the clinic to the table: a lead physician, and administrative and clinical staff. This approach has two main benefits. The peer-to-peer learning process motivates practices to test change ideas from colleagues that had previously been overlooked or considered unworkable. Additionally, working as a practice team promotes camaraderie, which can alleviate burnout. The collaborative QI skills are often applied to other aspects of a clinic’s operation that could be improved.

Cason Benton, MD, FAAP, and ACHIA medical director, shared a clinical example of how ACHIA collaboratives make a difference: “We didn’t think initiating the HPV vaccine at 9 years of age would work for our clinic for several reasons. But inspired by other collaborative practices, our nurses identified some small tests of change that made sense for our clinic.

“We tested the new workflows with just a few patients before offering the vaccine to 10-year-olds and then 9-year-olds. Now years later, our HPV vaccination rates are among the highest in the state. As a clinic, we take pride in preventing cancer.”

Register for our new collaborative

Under the leadership of Shawn Cecil, MD, FAAP, University Medical Center Tuscaloosa, and with educational content provided by Shannon Ross, MD, FAAP, Professor of Pediatric Infectious Disease at UAB, ACHIA will enroll practices in the 2025 Antibiotic Stewardship Collaborative in the fall. To learn more, join Dr. Ross at the AL-AAP Annual Meeting and Fall Pediatric Update, stop by the ACHIA table, check out our website www.achia.org or email ACHIA’s project manager Rachel Latham at rlatham@alaap.org.

This article first appeared in the Second Quarter 2024 Edition of the Alabama Pediatrician Newsletter.