Amy Brassfield and Katie Wooten assembled a multidisciplinary team to address prenatal drug use, formed a neonatal abstinence syndrome task force, created an NAS cohort care model and assumed leadership in the community to improve health outcomes of mothers and infants. The team-based, shared decision-making and collaborative approach resulted in $2.5 million in philanthropy, significant hospital stay reductions, associated cost savings, 44 percent reduction in pharmacotherapy and a remarkable increase in breastfeeding rate.

Stephen Martin and Ms. Matthews proposed the idea of regional telephone triage coverage for the Baltimore North JHCP Ob/Gyn practices, and the R.N.s involved collaborated to make this a highly successful program. Regional coverage resulted in an increase in office appointment times with R.N.s for Ob/Gyn patients, providing quality, patient-friendly care. The team is supportive of each other, and in constant communication to meet the needs of this complex patient population.

The Johns Hopkins Hospital Substance Use Disorders Service provides patient-centered care to individuals struggling with addiction during hospitalization and seeks to provide education to health care professionals. The program receives over 1,200 referrals yearly and provides key services to support recovery including counseling, referrals and medication-management plans.

Successful multidisciplinary rounds (MDR) require its leadership to define roles and responsibilities and ensure that the MDR team starts and ends on time, meets the needs of the care team and communicates well with the patient and family care partners. These team members were instrumental in creating and implementing MDR on two units. Patient experience scores have shown significant improvement, indicating that the rounds are useful to our patients and the care team.