About the Program
In recognition of California’s progress, investment, and innovative proposal to improve maternal health outcomes, the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) granted California a five-year, $10 million State Maternal Health Innovation (MHI) award. The award will go to the state’s Perinatal Quality Collaborative, the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC), housed at Stanford Medicine.
The HRSA State MHI Program aims to reduce severe maternal morbidity and mortality through broad-based, multidisciplinary collaboration, in order to improve maternal health and reduce maternal health disparities. The program will be centered on innovative programming that builds patient trust, increases access to and coordination of maternal health resources and services, and improves the quality of maternity care.
What to Expect
Program partners plan to:
- Translate data into action, using findings from California Maternal Mortality Review Committee reports, State maternal health needs assessments, surveys, and other sources.
- Develop and implement an evidence-based strategic plan, based on a comprehensive analysis of maternal health needs, to ensure that pregnant and postpartum individuals assessed for poor outcomes benefit from medical and public health programs.
- Learn from community voices about successful existing programs and systems, then integrate and promote those best practices as part of implementing new, innovative maternal health strategies.
- Fund new community-centered quality of care interventions that build trust, address critical gaps in service delivery, and improve maternal health outcomes by bridging clinical care and public health programs.
California Maternal Health Steering Committee and Task Force
The California Department of Public Health—Division of Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health, the California Department of Health Care Services, the Office of the California Surgeon General and CMQCC worked in close collaboration to convene a California Maternal Health Taskforce (MHTF) Steering Committee. Volunteers representing public health and healthcare sectors, as well as governmental, non-profit and academic partner organizations, were recruited and selected through an application and interview process. The final seated committee members include leaders from California’s richly diverse populations and geographic areas, with lived experience in maternal health or experience working to serve patients with lived experience.
The MHTF Steering Committee will strategize approaches for ensuring that at-risk pregnant individuals assessed for poor outcomes can access and benefit from medical and public health services, with the goals of reducing severe maternal morbidity and mortality, and racial, ethnic and cultural inequities. The Committee will also be responsible for recruiting, establishing and directing a multidisciplinary, diverse MHTF for California, the first cornerstone of this program.