Ochsner Health Wins HHS Hypertension Innovator Award for Connected MOM Program

Ochsner Health has been named a winner of the HHS Hypertension Innovator Award for its Connected Maternity Online Monitoring (MOM) program. This program enables expecting mothers to digitally send blood pressure readings to their medical team, ensuring continuous monitoring and care from home. The recognition by the HHS Office on Women’s Health highlights the program's success in increasing blood pressure monitoring, particularly for Black patients and those in rural areas, and its significant impact on maternal health outcomes.

Joseph Biggio, MD, system chair and service line leader for women's services, and system chair for maternal fetal medicine at Ochsner Health, discusses some of these program innovations and initiatives.

Transcript

What specific challenges did Connected MOM address that made it a standout candidate for the HHS Hypertension Innovator Award?

We know that the maternal mortality and maternal morbidity rate in the US, and specifically in Louisiana, are nowhere near where we would really like them to be as one of the leading economically developed nations. Hypertension is one of the leading contributors to maternal mortality and morbidity, and there are many challenges in monitoring patients during pregnancy for hypertensive disorders and the sequelae of those disorders. For patients who have low-risk pregnancies, typically they'll have 10 to 13 prenatal visits throughout the course of pregnancy, which can certainly create a challenge, and can be burdensome for many patients. For patients who have high-risk pregnancies, the number of visits maybe even more so.

The Connected MOM program was created initially to try to give patients more flexibility in how to approach prenatal care. But really, as the emphasis on maternal morbidity and hypertensive disease began to gain more traction over the last 5 or so years, we realized that there was a lot more that we could do with Connected MOM to increase flexibility, but also to provide more touch points in terms of blood pressure monitoring to have more readings [and] more data to make decisions on, and to look for earlier signs of complications. By using that, it really allowed us to start to think about, "How can we begin to work at ways to improve the lives of the patients and improve their pregnancy outcomes?"

Can you elaborate on how Connected MOM specifically improves care for Black patients and those in rural areas?

When we looked at the data that we had from Connected MOM, we saw that there certainly were some differences in terms of uptake in our patients who were Black and in patients who lived in rural areas, and that's provided some insight as we continue to develop the program. But one of the key things that we saw is when we looked at what we were able to do with those patients who were enrolled in the program vs the historical information in blood pressure measurements and follow-up, we saw that the patients who lived in rural areas and Black patients who were enrolled in Connected MOM had more blood pressure measurements throughout the pregnancy, and we had a higher percentage of patients who were keeping their postpartum visits for blood pressure assessment. And so, it provided not only more information, but also circumvented some of the challenges that we have with all patients in terms of number of visits, and especially that postpartum visit compliance, when there's so much else going on for those patients.

Reference

Ochsner Health wins innovator award funds for Connected MOM. Press release. Ochsner Health. Published June 24, 2024. Accessed August, 5, 2024. https://news.ochsner.org/news-releases/ochsner-health-wins-innovator-award-funds-for-connected-mom#:~:text=Ochsner%20Health%20has%20been%20named,Maternity%20Online%20Monitoring%20(MOM)