Melissa Smith-Parrish is a cardiac intensivist at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH). She also completed a Master of Science degree in Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety. Her main research interest is optimizing patient outcomes in children undergoing cardiac surgery. She serves as the Quality Improvement Lead for the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit Neonatal Cardiac Care Consortium (NC³), a multi-disciplinary group focused on improving the rate of complication-free survival in neonates with congenital heart disease through monthly review of quality improvement (QI) metrics of interest and implementation of numerous unit-based QI initiatives. 

Dr. Smith-Parrish's PEDSnet project focuses on broadening the impact of NC³ beyond the intensive care unit through the following aims:

1. Performing a systematic review of the current health care delivery model ranging from the Fetal Cardiology Program to hospital discharge to identify gaps and inefficiencies as potential focus points for future shared QI initiatives; 
   
2. Creating joint QI initiatives based on these identified areas for improvement with a standardized forum for data review and a data interface (dashboard) that enables real-time visualization of key QI metrics of interest; and
   
3. Qualitatively studying the family experience across the continuum of care from prenatal diagnosis to discharge home through personal interviews of parents/guardians whose neonates have completed care through the BCH Heart Center.