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Overview

Over the past 25 years, maternal morbidity and mortality have increased alarmingly in the United States. A woman giving birth in the U.S. today is twice as likely to die in childbirth as her mother was.*

Even more concerning is that maternal death rates are three times higher among black women compared to Caucasian women.* And ~65% of pregnancy-related deaths are preventable.

This growing problem is a product of a multitude of health system issues, including rising Caesarian delivery rates, individual health factors such as obesity and diabetes, and structural issues. There are also large demographic and socio-economic disparities in outcomes.

Collaborative efforts across stakeholders are needed to address this crisis. Understanding the problem, learning about and implementing strategies that work, and measuring how we’re doing are all important to improving maternal health outcomes.

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Understanding the U.S. maternal health crisis

Dr. Laura Riley has been analyzing available data to determine the leading causes of death to home in on preventability. She sees the need to focus not just on prenatal care, labor and delivery but on postpartum care as well, up to a year after delivery.

Learn more about the maternal mortality and morbidity landscape as Dr. Riley shares her perspective from overseeing ~20k deliveries per year at NY-Presbyterian Hospital, which services diverse populations in lower Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and Weill Cornell.

Speaker:  Laura Riley, MD, Obstetrician-in-Chief, NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and Chair, Department of OBGYN, Weill Cornell Medicine

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Central to understanding and preventing maternal mortality is obtaining and using insights from strong, comprehensive and standardized data to identify and act on opportunities to prevent maternal deaths. Rear Admiral Wanda Barfield, MD, has made that a focus at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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Learning about strategies that work

Find out how CDC has created a common data system that informs programs designed to tackle the underlying causes of adverse events and preventable maternal deaths. Dr. Barfield also shares insights on tools that help mothers and babies get care at the right place and time.

UnitedHealthcare and Optum use data and analytics to evaluate promising programs to improve maternal health. Learn more from Dr. Janice Huckaby about how they invest in programs that support patients and physicians via safety bundles, educational programs and more.

Speakers: Rear Admiral Wanda Barfield, MD, MPH, FAAP, Director, Division of Reproductive Health, CDC and Janice Huckaby, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Maternal-Child Health, Optum Population Health Services

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To improve maternal outcomes, strong metrics are needed to assess what is working and what is not. Currently, there is no comprehensive set of measures that can evaluate issues from the prenatal phase through delivery and into the postpartum period.

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Measuring program effectiveness

Amber Weiseth understands the challenge of using insights from data to develop programs that can improve maternal health at scale. Learn how the innovation process works at Ariadne Labs through a focus on simplicity, teamwork and design, and about the role that measures play.

OptumLabs has collaborated with Ariadne Labs and others to develop a key performance indicator framework to help improve maternal morbidity. Learn more from Chris Chaisson about the impact that claims-based measures focused on the delivery episode and beyond could have.

Speakers: Amber Weiseth, DNP, RNC-OB, Associate Director for the Delivery Decisions Initiative, Ariadne Labs, Chris Chaisson, MPH, Sr. Director, Translational Research, OptumLabs, Moderator: Darshak Sanghavi, MD, Chief Medical Officer, UnitedHealthcare Medicare & Retirement

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Footnotes

* Centers for Disease Control Monthly Morbidity and Mortality Report, May 7, 2019