Care Coordination

Care coordination for maternal health includes:

• Connecting patients to resources
• Avoiding duplication of services
• Improving communication between patients and healthcare staff

Coordinating care can prevent complications in normal pregnancies, particularly in communities that exhibit disproportionately high health risks: low-income, racial/ethnic minority, and isolated populations. Care coordination has been helpful in pregnancies complicated by opioid use disorder and complex social problems, such as those experienced by mothers who are refugees, have with limited English proficiency, or are victims of domestic abuse.

The Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (AIM) has created a collection of best practices for improving maternal health and safety called Patient Safety Bundles. These bundles provide healthcare providers with information about postpartum care, obstetric care for women with opioid use disorder, hemorrhage, racial/ethnic disparities, hypertension, and reducing cesarean births. Since these bundles address a wide array of topics, they rely heavily on coordination among multiple care providers to ensure the best maternal outcomes. Each bundle is self-contained and designed to build upon one another, with the eventual goal of all bundles being adopted.

For more information, see the Rural Care Coordination Toolkit and the Rural Services Integration Toolkit.

Resources to Learn More

5 Tips for Your Amazing Rural Pregnancy and Birth
Video/Multimedia
Identifies community resources in rural areas and offers suggestions for the development of a comprehensive healthcare team that best supports pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.
Author(s): DeArruda Wharton, K.
Date: 12/2018