Florida Statutes § 383.216

“Community-based prenatal and infant health care under the public health law”

The Department of Health must cooperate with localities which wish to establish prenatal and infant health care coalitions and must acknowledge and incorporate existing community children’s services organizations. The purpose of this program is to establish a partnership among the private sector, the public sector, state government, local government, community alliances, and maternal and child health care providers, for the provision of coordinated community-based prenatal and infant health care. The prenatal and infant health care coalitions must work in a coordinated, nonduplicative manner with local health planning councils.

Each prenatal and infant health care coalition must develop, in coordination with the Department of Health, a plan which includes:

• Performing community assessments to identify the local need for comprehensive preventive and primary prenatal and infant health care.
• Design a prenatal and infant health care services delivery plan which is consistent with local community objectives.
• Solicit and select local service providers based on reliability and availability, and define the role of each in the services delivery plan.
• Determine the allocation of available federal, state, and local resources to prenatal and infant health care providers.
• Review, monitor, and advise the department concerning the performance of the services delivery system, and make any necessary annual adjustments in the design of the delivery system, the provider composition, the targeting of services, and other factors necessary for achieving projected outcomes.
• Build broad-based community support.

The Department of Health must evaluate provider performance based on outcome measures established by the prenatal and infant health care coalition and the department.