Based on a long history of collaboration and support, the University of Vermont College of Medicine and Vermont Oxford Network (VON) formalized their relationship on November 14, 2014 when Jeffrey Horbar, M.D, VON chief executive and scientific officer, and UVM College of Medicine Dean Frederick C. Morin III, M.D., signed an Educational and Scientific Cooperation Agreement.

The agreement’s guiding principles focus on a joint commitment to the medical care of newborns and their families.

“The formalized agreement will allow us to leverage and enhance our joint strengths and commitment to neonates,” says Horbar, who is the Jerold F. Lucey, M.D. Chair in Neonatal Medicine at the UVM College of Medicine. UVM College of Medicine H. Wallace Professor of Neonatology Roger Soll, M.D., also serves in a leadership position at VON, where he is president and director of Network Clinical Trials.

Founded in 1988 by UVM Professor of Pediatrics Emeritus Jerold Lucey, M.D., VON is a nonprofit voluntary collaboration of health care professionals working together as an interdisciplinary community to change the landscape of neonatal care. Comprised of teams of health care professionals representing neonatal intensive care units and level I and II care centers around the world, the organization’s mission is to improve the quality and safety of medical care for newborn infants and their families through a coordinated program of research, education, and quality improvement projects. The VON Database, which currently enrolls 90 percent of all very low birth weight infants born each year in the U.S., serves as a crucial driver of quality improvement.

Among the new agreement’s features, says Horbar, is a recognized connection between the UVM College of Medicine’s Lucey Chair, which he is the first to hold, and leadership of VON.

Established in 2007 by Vermont Oxford Network, Inc., and other donors, the Lucey Chair supports the advancement of the care of newborn infants and their families through research, education, and quality improvement in the Department of Pediatrics.

“This agreement ensures that my successor as next Lucey Chair will continue to play a major leadership role in the Vermont Oxford Network,” Horbar says.

In addition, the agreement provides for the UVM College of Medicine Dean, plus one other College of Medicine leader, to join the VON board and play a formal role in guiding the organization’s direction.

In November 2014, VON celebrated the achievement of a significant milestone in the efforts of its membership to build a community of neonatal practice: its Database surpassed two million infant records, representing more than 63 million patient days.

“This is an important achievement for us and for all of the members of Vermont Oxford Network” says Horbar. “The size and diversity of the infant population represented in the Database allow us to provide crucial, independent feedback and benchmarking to our member hospitals, which serve as a key piece of their local quality improvement efforts. In addition to the quality improvement efforts of our member NICUs, the data have also been the foundation of important outcomes research and publications across the neonatal community.”

2014 also marks 25 years of data collection by VON, which has evolved into a community of practice that includes health professionals of all disciplines providing newborn health care at nearly 1,000 hospitals from around the globe. The members voluntarily submit data about the care and outcomes of high-risk newborn infants. In 1995, VON began developing and leading intensive, multi-center quality improvement collaboratives. Multidisciplinary teams from over 500 centers have participated in these collaboratives achieving measurable improvements in the quality and safety of medical care for newborn infants and their families.

Among VON’s major clinical research contributions over the past 25 years are several studies related to the care of premature infants, including trials on the optimal use of surfactant – a treatment for neonatal respiratory distress syndrome.

(Portions of this article were adapted from a news release produced by Beth Anderson of the Vermont Oxford Network.)