The U.S.-Russia collaborative in maternal and perinatal care visited Atlanta and Columbus as part of a Global Collaborating Center in Reproductive Health initiative.
 
The Global Collaborating Center in Reproductive Health initiative is a partnership between the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Emory University and the Georgia Department of Public Health to explore causes of and develop solutions for high rates of infant mortality in the state of Georgia.  For the last seven years, the Kazan State Medical Academy of the Russian Federation has collaborated on this initiative, which led to their recent visit to the U.S.
 
The group of physicians toured the Olivia D. Amos Birthing Center, TSYS Mother-Baby unit as well as the newly expanded Miracle NICU at our Midtown Campus.
 
“A visit by the delegation from Kazan gave us the wonderful opportunity to exchange ideas and information about perinatal care and for us to learn some surprising things about the state of perinatal care in Russia that we didn’t know and for them to learn from us as well,” said Dr. David Levine, Director of Neonatal Services at Piedmont Columbus Regional. “It shows promise for a lot of good exchange in the future and a lot of improvements in perinatal care on both sides.”
 
Piedmont Columbus Regional is one of only six regional perinatal centers in Georgia and the Miracle NICU serves 21 counties across West Georgia and East Alabama. The Miracle NICU provides subspecialty care and comprehensive services for at-risk and medically fragile newborns in a comfortable, supportive environment.
 
“We are learning about the six (perinatal) centers in Georgia and we started with Piedmont Columbus Regional and we are trying to learn something new and implement it in our country and our hospitals so maybe this will improve the outcome of our cases,” said Asiya Safina, M.D., a physician with the U.S. Russia Collaborative. “It is very important for us to learn about the system of transport and we know that the system of transport at this hospital is at the highest level.”