SALISBURY — Rowan Regional Medical Center has been recognized as an Infant Safe Sleep Hospital Model of Excellence by the N.C. Healthy Start Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Raleigh.
The foundation’s mission is to reduce infant deaths and disability and to improve the health of women and young children in North Carolina.
The award recognizes hospitals that are proven leaders in infant safe sleep policy, practice and education. The Infant Safe Sleep Model of Excellence Award, endorsed by the N.C. Hospital Association and the N.C. Child Fatality Task Force, was made available to all hospitals in North Carolina that deliver babies or care for babies younger than one year of age.
“The award recognizes the steps hospitals have taken, on a voluntary basis, to ensure that hospital policies and/or practices promote infant safe sleep,” said Janice A. Freedman, executive director of the N.C. Healthy Start Foundation.
Hospitals must meet four areas of excellence to be recognized: policy, staff training and education, patient education and modeling and community outreach.
Rowan Regional is one of seven hospitals in the state that met each of these criteria.
“We are proud of the ongoing efforts of our staff to ensure the safety of our patients remains our number one priority,” said Cora Greene, director of women’s and children’s services at Rowan Regional. “Our entire staff is dedicated to not only utilizing these best practices in our hospital but also committed to promoting safety with parents, caregivers and the entire community.”
Data from the N.C. Center for Health Statistics show that in 2010 there were 854 deaths of children under age one. Fifty-three of these deaths were categorized as SIDS, the leading cause of death for babies between one month and one year of age.
The N.C. Healthy Start Foundation, a nonprofit organization established in 1990, conducts ongoing public education campaigns, advises state and local policy makers and provides professional training and technical assistance focused on reducing infant death and illness and improving the health of women and young children.