Published online December 16, 2008
PEDIATRICS Vol. 123 Supplement January 2009, pp. S64-S66 (doi:10.1542/peds.2008-1755C)

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SUPPLEMENT ARTICLE

Alliance for Pediatric Quality: Creating a Community of Practice to Improve Health Care for America's Children

Paul V. Miles, MD^a, Marlene Miller, MD, MSc^b, Donna M. Payne, FACHE^c, Robert Perelman, MD, FAAP^d, Mimi Saffer, MA^a, Edward Zimmerman, MS^e for the Alliance for Pediatric Quality

^a American Board of Pediatrics, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
^b National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions, Alexandria, Virginia
^c Child Health Corporation of America, Shawnee Mission, Kansas; Departments of
^d Education
^e Practice, American Academy of Pediatrics, Elk Grove Village, Illinois

On any given day, hundreds of physicians, nurses, informaticists, health information management directors, and other health care providers are collaborating on how to improve health information technology systems for use in child health care. Many work in small communities of practice to share ideas, to find solutions, and to build innovations that support the goal of making electronic health record systems accessible by 2014. Together, they are a formidable virtual community aligned around a common strategy, to ensure that health information technology works for children. Each member in the community represents a children's hospital or pediatric practice affiliated with one of the 4 major national pediatric organizations that constitute the Alliance for Pediatric Quality. The alliance works with the pediatric health information technology community to speed the adoption of pediatric data standards and to define data collection and reporting systems that would work for both quality improvement and electronic health record systems. With this foundation, hospitals and physicians should be better positioned to improve the quality of health care for US children by implementing technology equipped to care for children, actively participating in improvement initiatives, conducting meaningful measurement of care, and appropriately reporting for accountability.

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Key Words: health information technology • pediatric data standards • quality improvement initiatives • pediatric measures • patient safety • electronic health records • child health profile

Abbreviations: AAP—American Academy of Pediatrics • HIT—health information technology

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Accepted Sep 11, 2008.

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