Mission, Vision, Values
Mission
The IMPLICIT Network is a family medicine maternal child health learning collaborative focused on improving birth outcomes and promoting the health of women, birthing people, infants, and families through innovative models of care, quality improvement and professional development for current and future physicians.
Vision
To envision a future where all mothers/birthing people are fully supported to attain optimal health and wellness for themselves and their babies.
Values
The work of the IMPLICIT Network is rooted in the following core values:
Supporters
The IMPLICIT Network receives support from foundations, government and public health, nonprofits, and industry.
- 2004-present Family Medicine Education Consortium
- 2004-2010 National March of Dimes support in-kind
- 2011-2012 PA American Academy of Pediatrics
- 2013-2016 March of Dimes
- 2016-2020 PA Department of Health
- 2020-2025 PA Department of Health
- 2021-2025 Minnesota Department of Health
- 2022-2024 North Carolina State Maternal Health Innovation Grant through MAHEC
- 2024-2026 American Board of Family Medicine
- 2025-2028 HRSA PA State Maternal Health Innovation Grant
- 2025-2026 The Philadelphia City Fund: Philadelphia Department of Public Health Division of Maternal, Child, and Family Health’s
If your organization is interested in providing support to IMPLICIT, please make a donation below:
History
At the 2003 Family Medicine Education Consortium (FMEC) fall meeting, a group of family medicine physicians discussed the idea of creating a network of family medicine residencies collectively working to reduce the incidence of premature and low birth weight babies using continuous quality improvement (CQI) techniques. Out of this meeting and with seed funding from the national March of Dimes, the Interventions to Minimize Preterm and Low Birthweight Infants through Continuous Improvement Techniques or the IMPLICIT Network, was formed.
After recruiting family medicine faculty members to review their prenatal care curriculum and existing prematurity prevention literature, the Network developed a shared strategy to implement evidence-based prenatal interventions known as IMPLICIT Pregnancy. This model, launched in 2004, concentrated on six areas of focused intervention as the basis of prematurity prevention: asymptomatic bacteriuria (UTIs), bacterial vaginosis (BV) screening for women/birthing people with a history of preterm birth, depression, smoking, and family planning to avoid short pregnancy interval. For nearly a decade, IMPLICIT Pregnancy was the dominant model at participating Network sites.
In recognition of the 2006 Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommendation to use the interconception period, or the time between pregnancies, to improve maternal health and subsequent pregnancies, the Network began developing IMPLICIT Interconception Care (ICC). Launched in 2011, IMPLICIT ICC eventually replaced IMPLICIT Pregnancy at most sites.
Our newest care model, IMPLICIT 4th Trimester (4TM) was launched in 2020 in response to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) call for a new paradigm of postpartum care that addresses the needs of women/birthing people and protects against maternal morbidity and mortality.
Throughout its history, the Network has published scholarly work highlighting the successes of the ICC and 4TM care models. Since its inception the IMPLICIT Network has consistently evaluated its care models using CQI techniques to provide the best quality care for women/birthing people and their families at all IMPLICIT Network sites.
In 2023, the IMPLICIT Network began a rebranding initiative of our logo and acronym to better represent the birthing people we serve and the work we do. Our new logo was launched in April 2024 and in March 2025 we unveiled our new acronym: Innovations for Maternal and PerinataL Care ImprovemenT.
