Perinatal Outreach Program

The University of Michigan Health System has provided a Perinatal Outreach Program since 1982. This service was developed in accordance with the Guidelines for Regionalized Perinatal Care and with the assistance of the Michigan Department of Community Health.

The current Perinatal Outreach Coordinator is Molly Gates, MSN, RNC. She is a registered nurse with specialty certification in neonatal intensive care nursing and experience in neonatal transport. The Perinatal Outreach Coordinator serves as a liaison to the staff at hospitals referring newborns to the Holden NICU. She works with personnel at those hospitals to make information, consultation, educational opportunities, and access to the clinical resources of the perinatal center available. The program’s goals are to ensure babies in the community hospitals in our referral region needing transfer for intensive care are readily identified, stabilized, and prepared for transport. Follow-up information about the patients is provided, and quality assurance transport reviews are conducted with the referring hospitals’ personnel on a regular basis. Additionally, internal quality assurance reviews with the Holden transport team and support services are conducted monthly.

The Perinatal Outreach Coordinator works with the Holden staff and the community hospital personnel to facilitate backtransfer of the convalescent newborn if the baby’s needs can be met at the community hospital.

Multiple educational programs are offered for our region and the surrounding areas. Our Perinatal Outreach Coordinator participates in the Michigan Perinatal Outreach Coordinators network, and frequently two or more of the coordinators will jointly sponsor programs of shared interest. .