The Symposium will include on demand “Spark Sessions” featuring innovative practices designed to improve maternal health.
What are Spark Sessions? Spark Sessions are short on-demand videos featuring practices being developed or implemented to improve maternal health. The goal of this part of the Symposium agenda is to lift up innovations from across the country.
Spark Sessions will be released on the virtual platform the week before the live event. To access the presentations, register for the Symposium. You will receive access information via email.
Get a sneak peak below of some of the Spark Sessions featured at the 2020 Symposium.
Questions? Email Allison George.
| Women’s Preventive Services Initiative (WPSI) | The Well-Woman Chart: A Preventive Health Services Tool For All Women | Developed by a coalition of national health professional organizations and consumer and patient advocates, the Well-Woman Chart is a comprehensive tool that summarizes preventive services recommendations for women. The Women’s Preventive Services (WPSI) presents the chart and its supporting documents with an innovative framework for incorporating preventive health services for women into clinical practice. |
| University Health System | Expanding Telehealth for Improved Maternal Outcomes | A University Health System representative discusses planning stage efforts to connect providers in the Uvalde and Del Rio service areas to their rural health patients and to specialty care at the University Health System in San Antonio. Considerations include: equipping facilities with telehealth capabilities, monthly learning sessions between providers and clinic staff, monthly calls with the Program Medical Director and more. |
| MoMMA’s Voices | Incorporating Patient-Partners in Safety and Quality Improvement Programs: Training and Tools for Providers | MoMMA’s Voices Coalition trains and supports women with lived experiences to actively and effectively participate as patient-partners. The Coalition does this through the Champions for Change Summit as well as numerous online webinars, panel presentations and a digital toolkit. In this session, they discuss the training offered to healthcare providers who are committed to incorporating patient-partners in their safety and Quality Improvement efforts. |
| Nurse-Family Partnership | Nurse home-visitation and COVID-19 pandemic: Adjusting to meet the needs of families in complex times | Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) is an evidence-based community health program that addresses disparities in the health and well-being of first-time families living in poverty. By pairing expectant mothers with specially-trained, registered nurses for the first 1,000 days – prenatally through their child’s second birthday – Nurse-Family Partnership has been proven to impact maternal health and birth outcomes for women at highest risk. This presentation details their efforts to continue reaching expectant mothers via telehealth in response to COVID-19. |
| [M]otherboard Birth | Cultivating Resiliency – Helping families communicate what’s important and make informed decisions | [M]otherboard Birth builds online tools helping parents and their care team communicate efficiently and effectively about informed consent situations to improve patient satisfaction around the birth experience. The web-based parent app helps families think through what’s important to them during their birth via a Visual Birth Plan Dashboard. The dashboard is full of evidence-based, trauma-informed, inclusive information. Invited team members can see the family’s preferences in real time, on any device. [M]otherboard Birth also offers a turnkey childbirth education program for educators, doulas, nurses, office support, and other professionals. |
| Preeclampsia Foundation | The Cuff Kit Project: “Self-Monitored Blood Pressure to Improve Diagnosis of Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy During Remote Healthcare (telehealth) | The Cuff Kit™ program distributes BP devices and associated patient education materials to healthcare providers and community health workers who care for high risk patients in a telehealth environment to help monitor their BP during prenatal and postpartum periods. This program serves women at highest risk for developing hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (i.e., individual risk factors such as chronic hypertension, history of preeclampsia, obesity, age (35+), autoimmune disorders; as well as population-level risk factors such as black, Native American, or rural women) |
| University of Maryland Baltimore – B’more for Healthy Babies Upton/Druid Heights | Addressing COVID stress among pregnant & parenting women in West Baltimore | B’more for Healthy Babies Upton/Druid Heights (BHB U/DH) is a program focused on improving birth outcomes in the Upton/Druid Heights neighborhood of West Baltimore. Program efforts include community outreach to educate about healthy pregnancies and safe sleep, group-based work including pre and post-natal moms clubs and breastfeeding support, and community health workers who work with individual pregnant women to identify strengths and needs and help them access services. Over 10 years, the infant mortality rate dropped from 14.1 to 7.2/1000 births. Low birthweight and preterm births also decreased and breastfeeding increased. Presenters will also discuss efforts to maintain impact during COVID-19. |
| National Doula Network | National Doula Network: Changing lives one birth at a time | The National Doula Network is a provider network of credentialed, certified doulas that are reimbursed a living wage for providing birth doula services to Medicaid families in Florida. Beyond securing reimbursement, the Network is working with health systems to create pipelines of referrals and integrate doulas as providers into the Medicaid system. Currently, NDN is contracted with one SMMC payer in Florida but hopes to grow to include more payers and even more states. The model used by NDN is based on the work of many doula organizations, community groups, and research that has come before us. This model includes a living wage, administrative support for charting, billing, and coding, building a support network of doulas, and raising awareness at the state and national level about birth doulas. |
| LiquidGoldConcept, Inc. | Hybrid telesimulation with standardized patients increases healthcare professionals’ translation of skills to the care of breastfeeding mothers and infants | This session details the development of a Lactation Support in a Telehealth Setting Course (The Course) with a high-fidelity breast model. The online,asynchronous Course spans topics in clinical lactation, maternal mental health, pediatrics, and breast cancer. Presenters will also discuss the theoretical framework, study design, and hypotheses for ongoing studies at UC Davis and Johns Hopkins University. |
| The Midwife Center for Birth and Women’s Health | Integrating Behavioral Health and Community Outreach in a Free-Standing Birth Center | The Midwife Center for Birth and Women’s Health has started two new programs to better serve Medicaid beneficiaries. The first program was an integrated behavioral health program to engage pregnant clients who may not otherwise seek out behavioral health. This has pivoted fully online. The second program involved hiring a community engagement coordinator to reach out to communities most in need. |
| Iowa Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (IMQCC)- Iowa Department of Public Health | Iowa Statewide Implementation of AWHONN’s POST-BIRTH Warning Signs | According to recent statistics in Iowa’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee report, 56% of the maternal deaths reviewed were postpartum deaths. Iowa is implementing statewide AWHONN’s POST-BIRTH Warning Signs (PBWS) Education and the POST-BIRTH Warning Signs Implementation Toolkit, a set of essential resources created by AWHONN. Ten (10) nurses from each of Iowa’s birthing hospitals and two (2) from each Title V MCAH agencies are being trained via the AWHONN POST-BIRTH Warning Signs education course. Presenters will report on progress to date. |
| New Jersey Department of Health | Refinement of the New Jersey Maternal Health Hospital Report Card- Year 2018 | In response to the high pregnancy-associated death ratio in New Jersey (NJ) of 46.9 per 100,000 live births 2013-2015, in August 2018, a bill was signed into law requiring the NJ Department of Health (NJDOH) to publish a New Jersey Maternal Health Report Card, a first of its kind publication, which is required to be updated and published annually. In partnership with hospital representatives and subject area experts, NJDOH utilized a statistical approach to develop and refine mandated health metrics tailored to inform members of the public about maternity care provided by each general birthing hospital in NJ. |
| Iowa Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (IMQCC) – Iowa Department of Public Health | Iowa Program Targets Seat Belt Safety for Pregnant and Postpartum Women | A multi-parter iniative in Iowa reports on their success creating a statewide social media campaign to remind pregnant and postpartum women that seat belts are safe for mom and safe for baby. The campaign started July 1, 2020, and will run through Sept. 30, 2020. In the most recent Maternal Mortality Review, the Review Committee reported that 18 percent of Iowa’s maternal deaths were from motor vehicle crashes and 71 percent of the pregnant or postpartum women who died in car crashes were not wearing a seat belt. |
| 4th Trimester Project | NewMomHealth.com: By moms, for moms | Presenters detail an online hub for postpartum health information and support. The site is open-access, non-commercial and co-designed with those we are seeking to serve. Access to evidence-based health information for the postpartum period is limited. This website and its corresponding social media channels fill a gap for birthing parents and those who support them. |
| Philadelphia DoPH | Innovative Solutions: It Takes a Village—Reducing Maternal Mortality in Philadelphia through Coordinated Action | Philadelphia has been a leader in addressing maternal mortality by creating the nation’s first non-state-based Maternal Mortality Review Committee (MMRC) in 2010. Organizing Voices for Action, otherwise known as the OVA, is a coalition formed specifically to work across sectors to carry out recommendations made from the Philadelphia MMRC. This session explains their efforts, successes and challenges to date. |
| Jacaranda Health | Bringing Kenyan maternal health innovation to North Carolina: Launching a scalable textline platform to help support pregnant and postpartum parents during COVID | Jacaranda Health discusses adaptation of its existing technology infrastructure and experience supporting over 150,000 pregnant and postpartum women in Kenya, to create a helpdesk for North Carolina moms in partnership with local perinatal educators, doulas, and clinicians. COVID Moms Helpline (covidmoms.org) is a free chat line staffed with knowledgeable experts and perinatal educators, available by SMS text or Facebook messenger. Expecting or new parents can text any question about pregnancy or postpartum care and COVID and get a rapid, informed response or referral to local resources. |
| AllianceChicago | Addressing the Maternal Mortality Crisis in the Ambulatory Setting: A Quality Improvement Approach | The Chicago Collaborative for Maternal Health, led by AllianceChicago and EverThrive Illinois, aims to improve maternal health outcomes in the ambulatory care setting via quality improvement initiatives, community engagement, and policy advocacy. AllianceChicago is developing the first quality improvement initiative, a population management approach to linking high risk patients to primary care providers in the postpartum period, and has an engaged ten ambulatory care partners, including FQHCs and hospital clinics, to inform and implement this initiative for their patient populations. |
El Rio Health and Tucson Medical Center | Building on Strong Start: Alongside Midwifery Units expand access to birth center care | The Midwifery Center is a collaboration between the ambulatory (El Rio Health) and acute care (Tucson Medical Center) organizations to provide eligible mothers seen by the midwifery service in the FQHC and prepared for birth in the facility. Located within the hospital, the program provides the beneficial features of the birth center model as demonstrated by Strong Start. The program supports physiologic birth, enhanced maternal infant support and community based follow up. Two thirds of mothers are admitted and discharged on the same day of the birth. The model boasts a 95.5% vaginal birth rate. |
| Oshun Family Center | It takes a Village: The Maternal Wellness Village | There is a fundamental need for multilevel interventions emerging from the lived- experience and expertise of Black women that provide support from early pregnancy through the end of the first postpartum year. To remedy this treatment gap, the multidisciplinary team of researchers and clinicians at Temple University has partnered with Oshun Family Center/Maternal Wellness Village, a group of Philadelphia-based Black birth workers, in order to develop an innovative, theory and evidence-based intervention that 1) uses telehealth platforms to provide Black birthing persons with racially-concordant community doula care, wraparound mental health and lactation support before, during, and after birth; 2) employs empirically supported peripartum lifestyle interventions delivered through mobile technologies to reduce cardiovascular risk factors, and 3) addresses structural racism and respectful maternity care through anti-racism and trauma-informed training of frontline providers and staff. |
Kansas University Center for Public Partnerships & Research | New approaches to engaging the community in needs assessment and planning | Kansas University Center for Public Partnerships & Research reports on efforts to use innovative mixed-methods approaches to engage and involve families and community members in a statewide needs assessment. This broad-based approach provided opportunities for hundreds if not thousands of Kansans to participate in a statewide needs assessment and to provide a unique lens on issues that helped the state develop a meaningful, responsive, strategic plan to address maternal and child health issues in the state in the coming years. |
| Postpartum Support International-Georgia Chapter | Georgia PEACE for moms | The Georgia chapter of Postpartum Support International and the Georgia chapter of Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies is partnering with faith-based and other community partners to establish virtual mental health peer support groups for pregnant and postpartum women. The focus is on counties that do not have any mental health support groups. The goal of the project is to roll out at least 40 groups throughout the state with a rotating enrollment of 10-15 women each, over the next 5 years. |
| Frontier Nursing University | A TeamSTEPPS- based Communication Quality Improvement Project for Effective and Efficient Transfer from Birth Center to Hospital | This session details the work of a quality improvement collaborative to improve communications during transfers from birth centers to hospitals. Specifically, the presenter focuses on the effectiveness of the debriefing tool based on the TeamSTEPPSTM curriculum, a long-standing, evidence-based approach to improving patient safety and quality of care, and its readily usable materials (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [AHRQ], 2013). |