Designations

The designation levels are based on meeting the milestone criteria per established frequency over a 12-month period, starting with the April 2025 through March 2026 implementation period. Designations will be initiative-specific, meaning milestones cannot be “mixed-and-matched” if a PA PQC Healthcare Team is participating in multiple initiatives. Initiatives in sustainment are not eligible for designation. Designation recognition will include a PA PQC banner, a graphic for sites to display on their website, and being listed on the PA PQC website by Designation category, celebrating the hospital’s achievement.

Achievement: Established multidisciplinary teams that have demonstrated improvements in maternal and newborn care by sharing best practices and data in their hospital and community, with a proven commitment to furthering health equity goals and patient participation in their quality improvement work. Criteria: QI Participation, Patient Voice, AND Health Equity

Achievement: Established multidisciplinary teams that have demonstrated improvements in maternal and newborn care by sharing best practices and data in their hospital and community, and are dedicated to incorporating patient voice or furthering health equity goals in their quality improvement work. Criteria: QI Participation plus EITHER Patient Voice OR Health Equity

Achievement: Established multidisciplinary teams that have demonstrated improvements in maternal and newborn care by sharing best practices and data in their hospital and community. Criteria: QI Participation

Designation Criteria:

QI Participation: Meet milestones listed below and maintain a minimum of two “qualifying quarters” for the same initiative during the designation year (April 2025 – March 2026). A “qualifying quarter” is defined as a single quarter in which the milestones are all met for a specific initiative (milestones 1 and 5 are completed at the hospital level and therefore only need to be completed ONCE per quarter per hospital, regardless of the number of initiatives joined).

Patient Voice: Show proof of including lived experience voices in PA PQC quality improvement work by implementing one or more community and patient partnership interventions. 

Health Equity: Show proof of health equity interventions in PA PQC quality improvement work that demonstrate a commitment to narrowing the equity gap.

 Health Equity and Patient Voice Reporting:

• Work with your QI coach to determine an eligible intervention (see examples below) to meet the health equity or patient voice criteria.
  • The intervention needs to be actively worked on during the designation period (April 2025 through March 2026).
• If you would like to be considered for Silver or Gold-level designation, you will need to turn in a QI plan for your equity and/or patient voice intervention to your coach by June 13, 2025, and show proof of your equity and/or patient voice intervention through a survey* by March 31, 2026. The “proof” will be evaluated by PA PQC staff based on the plan to determine whether the QI work meets the criteria.

*Additional details on the survey will be forthcoming.

Please send all PA PQC-related press releases in advance to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for review, and please notify the PA PQC if your organization is contacted by the media about your participation in the PA PQC.