Prevent Blindness selects three states for initiative to improve children’s vision

The National Center for Children’s Vision and Eye Health at Prevent Blindness and the National Institute for Children’s Health Quality have selected Arizona, Ohio and Wyoming to participate in a collaboration as part of the Improving Children’s Vision: Systems, Stakeholders and Support initiative.

The collaboration between the two groups is aimed at making improvements in the systems supporting children’s vision and eye health with a special focus on reducing the prevalence of vision problems in hard-to-reach populations of young children, according to a press release.

“We’re excited about this collaboration and committed to supporting these states to increase the proportion of children aged 5 years and younger who receive vision screening and diagnosis by 20% by 2018,” Meghan Johnson, MSc, National Institute for Children’s Health Quality (NICHQ) director of programs, said in the release. “We’re confident that NICHQ’s expertise in quality improvement and leading multi-state virtual learning collaboratives will help these teams reach this important goal.”

The Maternal and Child Health Bureau is funding the three-state project for 3 years. The project will focus on these quality improvements: strengthening statewide partnerships and coordination among key stakeholders in children’s vision and eye health; increasing access to and utilization of vision health services in hard-to-reach communities; increasing early detection and treatment of vision problems; establishing state-level surveillance approaches; and implementing vision health system measures of accountability.