THE ANTONIA BRANCIA MAXON AWARD FOR EHDI EXCELLENCE
Hallie Morrow
Dr. Morrow has been integral in establishing advancing, and refining the largest newborn hearing-screening program in the U.S. (over 500,000 births annually). Hallie has developed a model EHDI program creating a tracking and monitoring system in California that has improved loss to follow-up and ensures that each infant and family is connected to services. She maintains a tireless focus on refining and monitoring the quality of the program she created.
Hallie understands that the community is integral to any hearing screening program and that the state is made of diverse communities with differing challenges. She has developed relationships with local county programs, screening and diagnostic providers, California Children's Services, Public Health Agencies, California Department of Education, Early Start providers, Family Resource Centers, parent organizations and hospitals. Hallie manages an ongoing Quality Improvement Collaborative bringing together stakeholders from the entire state and oversees the state's AAP Chapter Champions efforts to provide educational support to the large primary provider community living in areas from very small and very rural to very large and very urban.
Hallie has made it a requirement that a parent of a child who is deaf or hard of hearing serve as a staff member in the state's Hearing Coordination Centers (HCC) to assisting the tracking and monitoring of babies. Hallie wants to assure a parent friendly process for families. Hallie worked in association with the California Department of Education to procure grant funding to develop the Parent Links program, which ensures ongoing family support.
To ensure comprehensive and consistent reporting of all the hard work done in the state, Hallie worked to advance her program through technology. She assisted in the completion of a multiyear data management system project that allows for the automated upload of demographics and hearing screening results from inpatient providers. The system provides for the tracking and monitoring of infants to assure they are placed with the appropriate care and provides quality indicator reporting to all providers. This allows the state's HCCs to oversee the transfer of patients among hospitals and regions to ensure proper follow up is completed. This is a huge accomplishment and advancement in efficiency for a state that identifies almost 1,000 infants annually with hearing Joss.
Hallie is a solid contributor at national and international conferences presenting Information on experiences, building strong EHDI relationships and garnering knowledge from other programs to continue to improve the California program.
Dr. Morrow has created something unique to support the families in California. Through her knowledge, caring and hard work she has been instrumental in creating a program that assures that thousands of infants will receive the care they so richly deserve.