NEWS

ACHIA’s 2025-2026 QI COLLABORATIVE TO ADDRESS SECURE FIREARM STORAGE COUNSELING in pediatric practice

by Cason Benton, MD, FAAP, Director, Alabama Child Health Improvement Alliance (ACHIA)

As the AL-AAP continues to work on this important public health issue, we will be aligning our work with the Alabama Child Health Improvement Alliance. ACHIA’s faculty and staff have worked together to develop the 2026 Firearm Injury Prevention: An ACHIA QI Collaborative, which will kick off in November 2025 and continue through July 2026. There is limited space for this collaborative, so please reach out to Beth Johns at bjohns@alaap.org if you are interested in participating or come by the ACHIA table and sign up at the Annual Meeting. We already have five practices enrolled. We are grateful to Daniel Carter, MD, FAAP, of Greenvale Pediatrics, who will serve as our Lead Physician for our collaborative.

Also, at the Annual Meeting, ACHIA has sponsored a guest speaker from Colorado, Caitlin Jones-Bamman, MD, FAAP, who will discuss her work in practices to provide anticipatory guidance and gun safety locks at well-child visits. This initiative is called Secure Their Future and can be found here:

www.securetheirfuture.org.

This article first appeared in the Third Quarter 2025 Edition of the Alabama Pediatrician Newsletter.