A new path to better maternal health in North Texas. Here’s how it works
A dashboard released this week is designed to improve maternal health in North Texas by using predictive data to focus resources in areas where women are likely to experience maternal health complications.
The Maternal Outcomes Monitoring System dashboard was designed by the Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation, a nonprofit research and development organization affiliated with Parkland Health in Dallas County. It supports the North Texas Maternal Health Accelerator, led by Texas Christian University and UT Southwestern Medical Center, to improve maternal health in Dallas and Tarrant counties.
Women who are at the most risk for maternal health problems are in communities with fewer resources and more coverage gaps, according to Steve Miff, president and CEO of Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation. The dashboard will allow groups working in the maternal health field to see challenges as they arise and act on the information proactively.
“I feel like we can actually see what rising risk is happening all the way down to the neighborhood level, and act and coordinate all the interventions with the partners before the mother shows up in crisis,” Miff said.
The Maternal Health Accelerator began last November with the goal of reducing severe obstetric complications, or unexpected outcomes of labor and delivery, by more than 20% over three years and rewarding maternal health improvements that last beyond the program’s period to keep mothers and babies healthy.
Eleven philanthropic partners committed nearly $25 million to support the program. More than 60 health care clinics, managed care organizations, and other partners throughout North Texas are part of the program.
According to the Maternal Health Accelerator and Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation, in Dallas and Tarrant County, there are about 66,000 deliveries annually and over 2,700 instances of severe obstetric complications per year, with an overall rate of 4.1%, which is greater than the national average of 2.64%.
The dashboard uses the DFW Hospital Foundation database, which collects information from millions of patients in the region to track and analyze. It also utilizes social determinants, such as housing stability, food security, and education. It combines clinical risks with social vulnerabilities, mapped down to ZIP code and census tract levels, to identify potential problem areas months in advance. The dashboard will be updated monthly unless the data doesn’t show significant changes, and will then move to quarterly updates.
The dashboard is available to the public through the Dallas County Health and Human Services website and will soon be accessible through Tarrant County Health and Human Services website.
The dashboard will help educate the community and bring collaborative actions tailored to each community’s needs, says Lance Rather, senior director of product and strategic partnerships at Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation.
“The unique thing here is the dashboard localizes these insights specifically for the populations, the community’s participating organizations, and is really seeking to serve and enable a more precise understanding for these organizations at that census track level, to direct very limited resources where they can be the most impactful,” Rather said.
