Dr. Spitzer has created an issue devoted to the evidence-based pharmacologic care of the neonate. The issue opens with an important article on? A Quality Improvement Approach to Modifying Medication Use in the NICU. The expert authors he has secured have contributed articles in the areas of therapeutic drug monitoring, off-label use of medications in the NICU, antenatal and post-natal corticosteroids, antibiotics, antifungals, and antivirals, as well as bronchodilators and nitric oxide. Other articles also present evidence-based use of oxygen, dopamine, anesthetics and analgesics, and erythropoetin.

This issue of Clinics in Perinatology, guest edited by Drs. Alan Spitzer and Dan Ellsbury, examines Quality Improvement in Neonatal and Perinatal Medicine. The first part of the issue addresses Tools of Quality Improvement and includes articles on The Quality Chasm in Neonatal and Perinatal Medicine; Evaluating the Medical Evidence; The Vermont Oxford Network Database; The Pediatrix Clinical Data Warehouse; Role of Regional Collaboratives: The California Perinatal Quality Care Collaborative Model; A Primer on Quality Improvement Methodology; Using Statistical Process Control Methodology; Human Factors in Quality Improvement, Random Safety Audits, Root Cause Analysis, and Failure Mode and Effects Analysis; Collaboration Between Obstetricians and Neonatologists: Perinatal Safety Programs and Improved Clinical Outcomes; and Pay for Performance: A Business Strategy for Quality Improvement in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine. The second part of this issue addresses Specific Applications of Documented Quality Improvement Methodology in Neonatal and Perinatal Medicine and includes articles on Delivery Room Intervention-Improving the Outcome, Reducing Retinopathy of Prematurity, Improving Breast Milk Use During and After the NICU Stay, Decreasing Catheter Related Bloodstream Infection, and Decreasing Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia.