At the 2026 Duke Health Quality and Safety Conference, a team comprised of clinicians, trainees and department leadership from Duke Ob/Gyn, Duke University Health System (DUHS) and the Duke Health Integrated Practice (DHIP) received the Karcher Patient Safety Award and Top Abstract Award for their poster submission “Tailored Prenatal Care Model to Improve Access and Patient Education.” The poster illustrated key outcomes of the Pregnancy Care Journey: improved template overbooking, a decrease in OB return visits while GYN visits increased, expansion of digital pregnancy education and alignment with an American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) clinical consensus published in 2025. The consensus encourages shared decision-making to reduce unnecessary in-person visits for average-risk patients and calls for further research on effective strategies to implement tailored visit models.
The Karcher Patient Safety Award is a prestigious honor that recognizes teams or individuals who have developed and implemented initiatives that significantly advance patient safety, standardized care and improved quality within the DUHS.
Congratulations to team members Leslie Johnson, MSN, RN, HACP; Monica Vallier, MBA; Jane Black; Jacqueline Lawdley, RN; Jasmine Arrington, MD, MPH; Krista Wilson, MHA, RN AMB-BC, CPPS; Ellen Thoresen; and Corey Bolac, MD.
The annual Duke Health Quality and Safety Conference celebrates work in quality improvement, safety and teamwork across the Duke University Health System. The conference brings together hundreds of Duke Health employees to recognize, evaluate, learn and advance health together.