Advancing maternal health equity featuring Mahmee
Unique and holistic approaches to support women during pregnancy and postpartum care.
Did you know that in the United States, Black women are nearly three times more likely to die from childbirth complications than any other ethnic group? As part of our ongoing discussion series Under the Same Sky, Abner Mason, founder and CEO of SameSky Health, met with Melissa Hanna, CEO, and Dr. Amanda Williams, Medical Director of Mahmee. This important conversation covered the unique and holistic approaches Mahmee has been using to support women during pregnancy and postpartum care to close gaps in maternal care. View the recording below.
In the US we have seen significant improvements in healthcare, and technology is playing a much bigger role in producing better outcomes. Even with the increased amount of money invested in healthcare and all these new developments, we continue to have disparities around maternal health, particularly for people of color. If you look at the data across all races and ethnicities, maternal mortality rates are still going up, and the US is worse than any other industrialized country. Moreover, the statistics are moving in the wrong direction. It is particularly frustrating to see that 80% of the maternal deaths across the nation are preventable. So, why does our country continue to face this maternal health crisis given the resources and knowledge that we have?
“We are seeing way too many moms and kids fall through the cracks in the system, and there are so many gaps in care that can be filled.””
All of our research and data shows that our current system is broken and not improving outcomes, but there are so many different variables affecting these negative results. Healthcare isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, and as a result, we’re seeing breakdowns in care delivery because of the number of different types of services needed for different people. Experiences and services aren’t transitioning smoothly between inpatient and outpatient care, and there are interruptions in how data is collected and shared. There are also so many challenging social and structural determinants of health that factor into the outcomes we see, such as access to food, transportation, and medical insurance, among others. On top of it all we have the impact of structural bias. All of these factors play a role in a member’s overall wellbeing.
“Black women do not have the same positive outcomes as their white peers, and it doesn’t have anything to do with their education…The California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative study out of Stanford recently revealed that the very wealthiest black Americans and their babies are dying at double the rate of the poorest white Americans. Structural racism exists and it is impacting outcomes.””
These are complex problems that require a multifaceted solution. No one entity can solve this on their own. There are elements rooted in systemic bias that go beyond the clinical level, so we must start thinking about the entire episode of care to improve the overall member experience. Maternal health doesn’t stop after a hospital stay, and infant mortality isn’t just the first days or weeks of life — it’s the entire first year of life.
Race and ethnicity are big factors to acknowledge in order to reduce disparities in care. The intersection of a member’s identity and lived experience is necessary to understand so that we can build better solutions for care delivery. There is a need to develop and implement programs at the individual level that complement the doctor and primary support. Mahmee has taken an initiative to close the gaps in care where the support is typically unfilled, especially for the at-risk or underserved populations across the country. They provide these six different service lines that all roll up into one care experience for each member:
Remote patient monitoring by registered nurses
Doula care and childbirth education
Lactation support
Mental health coaching
Nutrition coaching
Social needs care coordination
Filling these gaps in care at the individual level is helpful to understanding the whole patient experience during the entire maternity episode and how care is being delivered, which overall is chipping away at structural bias. Best of all, providing these service lines to members is creating impactful clinical outcomes. The current preterm birth rate is 10% nationally and 14% for Black women. Mahmee has dropped those numbers down to 6% nationally and 4% for Black women among their members. They have also seen the number of C-sections decrease from the national average of 36% to 26% among their members.
The time is now for health plans to try new solutions that improve maternal health outcomes because these programs are saving lives. We need to work together and experiment with new technology that will solve problems and reduce avoidable deaths.
“We need action! What we’ve been doing isn’t working and we need new solutions.””
Share this post:Related
