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2027 Open Enrollment For Hospital QI

Every Colorado birthing hospital has a role in safer births

Open Enrollment is your hospital’s opportunity to join a Colorado Perinatal Care Quality Collaborative (CPCQC) quality improvement (QI) initiative for the coming year. Whether you are a large delivery center or a rural critical-access hospital, enrollment connects your care team to coaching, data, and a statewide community of clinicians working to reduce maternal and infant mortality and morbidity — and to close the inequities in perinatal outcomes across our state.

Enrolling is also how your hospital meets its obligations under Colorado law.

Why engagement is required: Colorado Senate Bill 24-175

In 2024, Colorado enacted Senate Bill 24-175, the Improving Perinatal Health Outcomes Act, codified at C.R.S. § 25-52-106.5. The law charges CPCQC, as Colorado’s designated perinatal quality collaborative, with leading statewide quality improvement and it requires every hospital that provides perinatal care to engage.

Under C.R.S. § 25-52-106.5(4), each Colorado hospital with a labor and delivery unit and/or a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) must participate annually in at least one CPCQC-led maternal or infant health quality improvement initiative, beginning December 15, 2025.

In 2027, CPCQC is limiting enrollment to two QI initiatives per hospital each year so teams can go deep rather than wide — focusing effort, coaching, and data collection where they’ll drive real, measurable change instead of spreading a QI team thin across competing priorities. Under Colorado law, hospitals are only required to actively engage in ONE QI initiative per year.

Selecting and enrolling in an initiative each year keeps your facility in compliance with the statute while giving your team the tools and support to improve care.

What counts as “engagement”

To be recognized as an Active Participant in an initiative, a hospital completes five activities over the course of the year:

  • Enroll. Submit an enrollment form annually.
  • Coach. Attend at least one virtual QI coaching session each quarter (four sessions per year).
  • Survey. Submit at least two practice-related surveys during the year.
  • Meet. Have a team member attend at least 75% of monthly initiative meetings, including an annual forum (at least 9 meetings annually)
  • Report. Submit initiative-specific data — disaggregated by race, ethnicity, and payer — at least 75% of the time.

These activities are designed to fit into your team’s existing workflow, and CPCQC coaches support you at every step.

Open initiatives

Every hospital chooses the initiative that best fits its patients, its data, and its improvement priorities. Each initiative is grounded in evidence-based practice and aligned with the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (AIM) patient safety bundles. 

SOAR — Safe reduction of primary cesarean birth 

SOAR supports teams working to safely lower the rate of unnecessary primary (first-time) cesarean deliveries. Participating hospitals implement evidence-based labor support and clinical practices to improve outcomes for birthing people while reducing avoidable surgical births.

SPARK — Postpartum care and discharge transitions

SPARK strengthens the postpartum period and the transition from hospital to home — a window when serious complications can go unrecognized. Teams work to improve discharge education, warning-sign recognition, follow-up, and connection to ongoing care so that patients stay safe after they leave the hospital.

NEST — Infant safe sleep

NEST is CPCQC’s infant-focused initiative, supporting newborn care and safe-sleep practices in the hospital and beyond. Teams adopt standardized, evidence-based approaches that protect infants and model safe practices for families before discharge.

In addition to the annual cohorts listed above, CPCQC hosts a 2-year cohort for our Turning the Tide Perinatal Substance Use initiative. Hospitals currently enrolled in the 2026 cohort will continue into 2027. New enrollment in this initiative opens in fall of 2027.
Turning the Tide — Perinatal substance use (not eligible for new hospital enrollment in 2027)

Turning the Tide helps care teams deliver compassionate, standardized, evidence-based care for pregnant and postpartum patients affected by substance use disorder, and for substance-exposed newborns. The initiative focuses on screening, treatment, care coordination, and reducing stigma across the perinatal care continuum.

Steps for Open Enrollment

The enrollment process is completed in two steps:

Step 1: Submit the Hospital Interest Form. From September 15-October 15, complete the ​Interest Form. You will rank your interest in the three initiatives that are open for enrollment (SOAR, NEST, and SPARK), and briefly describe your reason for each ranking. The information you provide on your interest form will be incredibly valuable in helping us to prepare for next year.

The CPCQC team will use your input to plan next year’s cohorts, then notify you of which initiative(s) we invite you to enroll in. Due to limited capacity, we cannot guarantee that every hospital will be accepted into its first-choice initiative. However, we will make every effort to honor your preferences.

Step 2: Submit your enrollment form(s). In November, the person who submitted the interest form will receive the link to submit your official enrollment forms for your chosen initiatives by the Dec 1st deadline. This is the final step in enrollment and fulfills Colorado statute for enrollment.

Questions? We’re here to help

Our Quality Improvement team can walk you through initiative options, enrollment, and what SB 24-175 means for your facility.