HI-CHI is a project of Hawaii Island Health Information Exchange (HIHIE), which is a non-profit organization. Our mission is to continuously improve healthcare quality, cost-efficiency, and population health.
Project Vision
The Vision for HI-CHI is accessible, high quality maternal and infant healthcare for rural areas of Hawai‘i.
Project Mission
The Mission of HI-CHI is to improve the accessibility and quality of health services for mothers and infants in rural areas of Hawai‘i through education and facilitating collaboration between health facilities, healthcare providers, and the community.
Current Project
We currently provide travel fees and reimbursement to physicians who travel to neighbor islands to train health care professionals in NRP. We also offer travel fees to resident doctors to experience practicing in rural areas on neighbor islands.
Goals and Objectives
Goal 1: To encourage rural birthing hospitals in the state of Hawai‘i to work collaboratively to enhance patient safety, meet national guidelines, and share new ideas to improve healthcare.
Objective: Develop in-house neonatal rapid response or resuscitation teams to resuscitate and stabilize sick newborns until the pediatrician arrives. This will improve patient safety and allow hospitals to meet national Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP) guidelines.
Goal 2: On-going healthcare quality improvement for mothers and infants
Objectives:
i. Support state-wide quality improvement initiatives that address gaps in rural health outcomes for mothers and infants through coordinated training and educational activities that build capacity of healthcare providers in rural areas.
ii. Promote system changes by provider organizations to increase use of evidence-based clinical practices for mothers and infants.
iii. Support other efforts that maximize available financial and human resources to improve maternal and infant health in rural areas.
HI-CHI Project History
The Hawai‘i Collaborative Health Initiative (HI-CHI) was created by a group of health care providers who came together in 2009 to develop strategies for improving essential maternal and child healthcare services in Hawai‘i County. Through the HRSA Rural Health Network Development Planning Grant, HI-CHI is developing organizational infrastructure during 2013 to carry out quality improvement activities for Neonatal Resuscitation Team (NRT) Training and other perinatal initiatives throughout the state.
A main focus for HI-CHI is to provide Neonatal Resuscitation Team (NRT) training for rural hospitals. HI-CHI has developed an NRT training protocol based on National Standards and facilitates NRT Training statewide. In 2012, HI-CHI assumed a leadership role in the creation of a Perinatal Quality Collaborative (PQC) for rural areas of the state. Quality improvement for perinatal care is currently based on data collected and analyzed for NRT measures. Working in partnership with the John A. Burns School of Medicine, a main focus for 2016 is increasing the primary care (OB/GYN and pediatrician) workforce in rural areas of Hawai‘i. HI-CHI also has a process for adopting new projects that fall within the organization’s scope of activities.