We love health care quality (quality is our roman empire in that we think about it all the time). Measuring and improving the quality of health care delivery is our bread and butter and keeps us coming to the real or virtual office every day. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality defines the six domains of quality as health care that is: safe (avoiding harm), effective (based on best scientific knowledge), patient centered (respectful and responsive to those receiving care), timely, efficient (avoiding waste), and equitable. These six elements are woven through our Care Outcomes Assessment Programs, Smooth Transitions, Washington Patient Safety Coalition, and the Bree Collaborative.

This month, we are sending a huge valentine of thanks to Audrey Levine, LM, CPM, who is stepping down as Director of the Community Birth Data Registry, co-Chair of the Smooth Transitions Leadership Team, and member and past chair of the OB COAP Management Committee. Audrey has been instrumental in establishing, growing, and creating impact for each of these. We are more than ecstatic to welcome Dr. Melissa (Missy) Cheyney and Dr. Marit Bovbjerg as co-Directors of the CBDR.

Missy Cheyney, PhD, is Professor of Clinical Medical Anthropology at Oregon State University (OSU) and a community midwife. She is Co-Director of Uplift—a research and reproductive equity laboratory at OSU, where she serves as the Primary Investigator on more than 20 maternal and infant health-related research projects, including the Community Doula Project. She is the author of an ethnography entitled Born at Home (2010, Wadsworth Press) and co-editor of Birth in Eight Cultures (2019, Waveland Press). She has published extensively on the cultural beliefs and clinical outcomes associated with midwife-attended birth at home and in birth centers in the United States. Dr. Cheyney is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Birth: Issues in Perinatal Care and the chair of the Human Research Protection Program’s Institutional Review Board at OSU. In 2019, Dr. Cheyney served on the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s Birth Settings in America Study and in 2020 was named Eminent Professor by OSUs Honors College. She also received Oregon State University’s prestigious Scholarship Impact Award for her work with the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA) Statistics Project.

Marit Bovbjerg, PhD, MS, is assistant professor of epidemiology at Oregon State University, and co-founder of Uplift, a research and health equity laboratory. Her research focuses on maternity care in the US, specifically community birth, midwifery, and doulas. Dr. Bovbjerg has received funding from the US National Institutes of Health, the US Health Resources and Services Administration, numerous smaller foundations, and in 2019 she was a Fulbright Scholar, appointed at Ireland’s National Perinatal Epidemiology Centre, University College Cork. 

They are both very much looking forward to shepherding and scaling the Community Birth Data Registry and working to improve maternal/child health with new colleagues from the FHCQ.

We are also holding three Bree Collaborative topic spotlight webinars on Perinatal Behavioral Health (February 15^th), Diabetes Care Webinar (February 20^th), and Complex Discharge (February 29^thand are continuing to plan for our Patient Safety Skills: Cognitive Interviewing Workshop on March 19^th and our Catalyst for Change Webinar Series: Centering Health Equity in Value-based Care on March 6^th.

Sending a valentine to all of you in our health care ecosystem.