Texas maternal health initiative launches first in-person learning sessions for hospital teams
LASSO-TX (Lactation and Safe Sleep Opportunities in Texas) is a hospital-based quality improvement initiative of the Texas Collaborative for Healthy Mothers and Babies (TCHMB), in collaboration with the Texas Department of State Health Services. TCHMB is led by UTHealth Houston School of Public Health in Austin Regional Dean, Deanna Hoelscher, PhD as the principal investigator, and Associate Professor, Divya Patel, PhD as Research Director. Staff member Susan Dimitrijevic serves as the TCHMB Clinical Director, and she oversees the TCHMB LASSO-TX healthcare quality improvement initiative. LASSO-TX provides a structured, supportive framework to accelerate learning and drive measurable improvements in breastfeeding and safe infant sleep. It aligns hospital-based teams of healthcare professionals around a shared aim and provides access to evidence-based, family-centered care strategies, change ideas, and quality improvement tools to guide implementation. LASSO-TX is grounded in the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Breakthrough Series Collaborative Model for Breakthrough Improvement, a widely used framework that accelerates improvement by connecting teams around shared aims, evidence-based strategies, and peer exchange.
Central to LASSO-TX are its in-person learning sessions, which serve as anchor points for collaboration and relationship-building throughout the initiative. Hosted in Dallas, Houston, and Austin, each session takes place over one and a half days and brings together multidisciplinary hospital teams, faculty, staff, and partners to focus on how participating facilities can improve exclusive breastfeeding and safe infant sleep practices within their own hospital settings. The sessions blend expert-led content with guided discussion, peer exchange, and shared problem-solving, giving participants time to collaborate and discuss practical strategies for implementation.
The learning sessions reinforce LASSO-TX’s emphasis on collaborative learning and continuous improvement, creating a valuable space for peer learning, where multidisciplinary teams share experiences, identify challenges, and collaborate on solutions. The goal is for these practices to become a deeply embedded part of both institutional culture and individual clinical practice; something the multidisciplinary team believes in, models daily, and carries forward beyond the project.
Learn more at https://www.tchmb.org/lassotx