Department of Health and Human Services Grant: Reproductive and Environmental Health Network

The purpose of the Reproductive and Environmental Health Network funding opportunity is to fund a national organization to improve maternal and fetal health outcomes by providing evidence-based information on the safety of exposures in pregnancy and lactation.  Activities will include:

Support regional Teratology Information Services (TIS) that provide one-on-one risk assessments and counseling to individuals of reproductive age and to providers on known and potential reproductive risks;
Provide the most current information to the public and health care professionals on possible risks from environmental exposures by advancing the knowledge base, synthesizing research, and developing resources to communicate findings; and
Improve access to teratogen information services to vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations.

In addition to conducting the activities listed above, the awardee will also be required to establish systems and processes that will support the organizations¿ performance management and quality assurance (QA) requirements through effective tracking of performance outcomes, including a description of how the organization will collect and manage data (e.g., assigned skilled staff, data management software) in a way that allows for accurate and timely reporting of performance measures.  Performance measures should be established around:

Consumer utilization: volume of interactions, consumer satisfaction, etc.
Provider utilization: volume of interactions, provider awareness, provider satisfaction, etc.
Outreach to hard-to-reach populations: volume of interactions, innovative use of technology to reach intended audience, establishing partnerships to increase reach, etc.
Contributions to the knowledge base: adding to the research base for exposures; synthesizing new findings; widespread dissemination of current efforts and new findings.

QA activities should be focused around establishing and monitoring general standards for sub-awardees, to include: establishing mechanisms for ensuring each funded TIS has a protocol for providing up-to-date pregnancy outcome information in risk assessments for a variety of exposures, and for continuously updating data sets of teratogen information and sharing resources with other TIS locations; providing guidance on ideal staffing arrangements, qualification standards, and training requirements for staff; providing guidance on general operating guidelines; etc.

The awardee will be responsible for advancing the research base through ongoing collection of data from TISs that facilitate research.  The awardee should establish mechanisms and requirements to ensure that sub-awardees will participate in these ongoing data collection and study implementation activities, and should describe a plan for major data collection and research efforts.