NJHA hosted the Statewide Perinatal Safety Collaborative with more than 120 members in attendance to kick office the New Jersey Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (AIM).
New Jersey is one of just eight states participating in the AIM initiative.
The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate of any high-resource country, and it’s the only country outside of Afghanistan and Sudan where the rate is rising. The AIM program was founded as a solution to help improve maternal outcomes across the United States by utilizing a national data-driven quality improvement initiative.
The program introduced practitioners to the AIM toolkit, as well as focused on rapid recognition and response to maternal hemorrhage, one of the most deadly complications of giving birth.
Lisa Asare, MPH, assistant commissioner of family health services in the state Department of Health, addressed the group. She stated that without partnerships between the state and organizations like NJHA, previous successes and future improvements would not be possible.
Asare said DOH “wants to be a champion of a culture of maternal safety” in the United States, and applauded the participants in the Perinatal Safety Collaborative for taking the lead.
She also addressed challenges New Jersey faces in maternal mortality; New Jersey ranks 35th out of the 50 states in pregnancy-related deaths, according to Amnesty International, and there are still significant disparities in maternal mortality between different racial and ethnic groups.
Thomas Westover, MD, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Cooper University Health Care, and Robyn D’Oria, MA, RNC, APN, executive director of the Central Jersey Family Health Consortium, were moderators for the program.
Other speakers included:
- Ryan Hansen, founder of the Tara Hansen Foundation, who told his personal story of losing his wife from complications during childbirth.
- Jeanne Mahoney, RN, BSN, senior director of AIM, program director of the Providers' Partnership American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and Kisha Semenuk, MSN, RN, program manager for AIM, ACOG, who spoke about the initiative and of the technical assistance and resources on the AIM website.
- Elliott Main, MD, medical director of the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative, who spoke on the importance of engaging and ensuring physician involvement.
