Strong Start Ohio (SSO) was a collaborative effort to reduce preterm births, educate and support mothers, reduce costs, and save lives. It was designed to identify pregnant women on Medicaid who were identified as “high risk’ and enroll them in a maternity care program. At the request of the Ohio Department of Medicaid (ODM), GRC designed, implemented, and evaluated two maternity care intervention models.
The project implemented an 18-month quality improvement (QI) learning collaborative that piloted the Centering Group Care (CGC) and Maternity Care Home (MCH) models of care at three Ohio pilot sites. The CGC and MCH models of care are designed to reduce adverse birth outcomes, such as preterm birth, by addressing and modifying key psychosocial and behavioral risk factors. Summa Health System (SHS), Adena Health System (AHS), and Holzer piloted one or both of the models of care and engaged more than 850 women to participate.
Health Services Advisory Group (HSAG) was engaged to assist in the design and implementation of the quality improvement (QI) components of the project. The project team utilized a modified version of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Breakthrough Series Model for Improvement to:
- Identify standardized components for integration into the pilot site’s risk assessment process to be used within each model for recruitment;
- Develop and implement a QI structure to share clinical best practices, patient engagement and retention strategies, and promote adherence to CGC and MCH model fidelity; and
- Develop and implement rapid cycle quality improvement feedback.
Building Teams for Healthy Moms and Babies
The MOMSOhio.org site has many resources for moms, moms-to-be, and healthcare providers, including clinical resources like detailed treatment algorithms. Visit the site today and gain access to this important information!
This project was funded by the Ohio Department of Medicaid. At the direction of ODM, the project team also developed a Shared Decision Making (SDM) Tool available in a paper and interactive electronic format.
