DRIVE Small Hospital Grant

Background

The Delivery Room Intervention and Evaluation (DRIVE) Network is a novel network to study and improve neonatal resuscitation across an inclusive and diverse population of infants born in delivery rooms in the United States. DRIVE’s goals are to innovate health care delivery by designing and testing solutions to improve provider training, team performance, and clinical outcomes for newborns who require resuscitation at birth. DRIVE will also compare practice-level delivery system characteristics, identify best practices, and promote professional development.

In order to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion of hospitals across the country, DRIVE has created the Small Hospital Grant mechanism to help offset initial start-up costs of joining the DRIVE Network. This grant will provide funding to support personnel and resource costs of joining the DRIVE Network to selected hospitals in exchange for participation in the Network for a minimum of five years.

Terms

The grant will provide a total of $5,000 and 3 years of membership to the DRIVE Network without a membership fee.  The participating hospital sign a MOU to participate in and submit data to the Network for 5 years, and adhere to all of DRIVE’s policies and procedures, including signing a Consortium Agreement, obtaining local IRB approval (or exemption), and maintaining investigator CITI credentials.  This seed funding is intended to set up their infrastructure for data collection so that they can continue to be a participating member of DRIVE after the grant period ends. 

Application Criteria

To apply for the DRIVE Network Small Hospital Grant, hospitals must meet the criteria described below.

• Unaffiliated with an academic institution, with preference for hospitals primarily servicing rural or other underserved populations
• An annual birth volume of less than 1000 deliveries per year
• Agree to commit to participate in the DRIVE Network for at least 5 years total
• Ability to obtain institutional support to join the DRIVE Network in the form of signing on to a Consortium Agreement and receiving local IRB approval (or exemption)
• Ability to collaborate with the DRIVE Data Coordinating Center to ensure the hospital can:
  • Accurately identify >95% of newborns who are eligible for inclusion in DRIVE
  • Undergo all training needed to submit high quality and validated data for all identified eligible patients

Application Process

Hospitals interested in applying for the grant will fill out the DRIVE Network Small Hospital Grant Application Form. The form collects data about the hospital/institution and site lead, as well as further details on the population and demographics the hospital serves. After the form has been submitted to the DRIVE Network, DRIVE will share the DRIVE Consortium Agreement and an MOU with the hospital. The hospital will review both documents and submit a letter of institutional support that demonstrates the hospital is interested in joining the Network and will be able to sign on to the DRIVE Network Consortium Agreement within a 4-month period.

The DRIVE Executive Committee will review all the applications and use a rubric of scoring criteria to determine the top applicants. The top applicants will be recommended to the Steering Committee for a final vote to join the Network. The number of grants available each year will depend on available resources.

Following the completion of regulatory steps to join the Network, funds will be dispersed in yearly installments to the hospital.

Questions? Contact [email protected]