Leading Health Organizations Launch State-Based Care Programs Through the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health

Washington, DC—The Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (AIM) —a four-year national program led by the Council on Patient Safety in Women’s Health Care—is now accepting applications from state programs interested in enrolling in efforts to reduce maternal complications associated with labor and delivery.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) is a core partner in the program, which is funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Other partners include the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses, the American College of Nurse Midwives, the Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, and the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC).

The goal of AIM is to avoid 100,000 severe complications during labor and delivery and to prevent 1,000 maternal deaths over four years. The need for this in the U.S. is significant; according to one recent study, the U.S. was one of eight countries where maternal death rates worsened between 2003 and 2013. AIM targets complications including obstetric hemorrhage, severe hypertension, and venous thromboembolism, and also seeks to avoid low-risk primary Cesarean births and reduce racial disparities associated with prenatal care.

In order to do so, AIM partners are developing and disseminating a series of evidence-based patient safety bundles, small, straightforward sets of practices that, when performed regularly and appropriately, can help to improve patient outcomes.

Pilot programs in California and New York have already demonstrated the value of institutional adoption of these bundles. In California, due in part to leadership by the CMQCC, the maternal mortality rate per 100,000 live births decreased from 16.9 in 2006 to 6.2 in 2012.

“ACOG has long recognized the need to address maternal mortality in the United States, and our practice recommendations present a wide variety of tactics to improve obstetrical outcomes,” said Mark S. DeFrancesco, MD, President of ACOG. “But we know that we need to do more regarding implementation of these best practices. AIM’s efforts to implement bundles at the institutional level will certainly have a meaningful impact on patient care and, we hope, on the U.S. maternal mortality crisis.”

ACOG and its partners encourage interested hospitals and state programs to enroll in AIM in order to move the program—and its significant potential benefit to patients—forward. Information about enrollment can be found here.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (The College), a 501(c)(3) organization, is the nation’s leading group of physicians providing health care for women. As a private, voluntary, nonprofit membership organization of approximately 58,000 members, The College strongly advocates for quality health care for women, maintains the highest standards of clinical practice and continuing education of its members, promotes patient education, and increases awareness among its members and the public of the changing issues facing women’s health care. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), a 501(c)(6) organization, is its companion organization. www.acog.org