Michelle Pratt is a registered nurse certified in maternal-newborn nursing and obstetric & neonatal quality and safety. Inspired by her passion for reproductive justice and health equity, Michelle came to nursing after completing her graduate degree in anthropology. She has spent her nursing career working with birthing people and their families in various clinical nursing and nurse leadership roles across all areas of perinatal care.

Dr. Pratt’s areas of expertise are equity-focused quality improvement and program implementation and data-driven analysis and decision-making for nurse leaders. She spearheaded the creation of a perinatal disparities dashboard and led a successful year-long initiative to decrease racial inequities in both breastfeeding goal attainment and human donor milk use in the hospital. She successfully increased the diversity of lactation consultants by 40%, She has co-led development of equity-driven initiatives including a hospital-based perinatal equity council, a maternity patient-family advisor program, and a labor support volunteer program for pre-professional students. Michelle provides individual consultation for nurse leaders seeking data-informed strategies to enhance patient experience and outcomes, as well as unit workflow, staffing, productivity and charge capture. She also prepares executive summaries/SBARs and graphic data presentations to help nurse leaders better advocate for resources and support from hospital administrators.

Dr. Pratt has training in Lean, A3, IHI Model for Improvement, and Design Thinking methodologies. She attended the Emory Healthcare Quality Academy and completed The Ohio State University Fuld National Institute for Evidence-Based Practice virtual program. The focus of her doctoral project at Capella University was standardizing nursing care to reduce NTSV cesarean rate.

Michelle has presented locally, regionally and nationally on the team’s work to implement a perinatal disparity dashboard, and the ongoing equity-focused QI work they do. She is honored to have been a 2021 finalist for the March of Dimes Heroes in Action Clinical Innovation award for her work to reduce perinatal disparities at her hospital.