Newsworthy

At Stormont Vail Health, every outcome is important – including the health of both mother and baby through pregnancy and birth. The Stormont Vail are partnering with other campuses across the system,  state, and other entities to improve maternal and infant health outcomes.

From Campus to Campus

The Stormont Vail Health Topeka and Flint Hills Campuses are collaborating to increase maternal quality improvements for both communities statewide. What does this mean for mothers and infants? Stormont Vail is driven to deliver women and infants the best care possible while decreasing or eliminating factors that lead to poor health outcomes.

Helping lead this collaboration between the two Stormont Vail locations is Terrah Stroda, Certified Nurse Midwife at the Flint Hills Campus. Together with team members at both locations, Stormont Vail actively evaluates data to determine what can be done to improve maternal and infant health outcomes. The information covers various topics, from prenatal care and post-partum support to work in racial disparities.

Junction City has been doing maternity and infant data evaluation for years through Delivering Change. Delivering Change, located in the Flint Hills Campus, is a nonprofit created in 2011, in response to statistics about the health of babies born to Geary County mothers. The Delivering Change model aims to improve women’s health through prenatal health, promote and educate breastfeeding, enhance the health of infants and children, and engage, encourage, and guide fathers. With collaboration, both campuses can look at the presented data and implement quality improvement projects across the system.

All Part of a Larger Effort

Terrah has been a large part of the collaboration, not just between Junction City and Topeka, but between Stormont Vail and the state of Kansas. While both campuses are connected to Terrah through her work with Stormont Vail, they’re also associated with Terrah via her other role – Maternal Quality Improvement Co-Coordinator with the Kansas Perinatal Quality Collaborative (KPQC).

KPQC is focused on maternal health outcomes, using methods based on Delivering Change’s model across the state as the Fourth Trimester Initiative. This initiative is focused on inpatient postpartum care immediately after delivery and connects patients to resources they can use for up to one year postpartum. Through her work with KPQC, Terrah also presents and educates about the research findings while sharing what each hospital and community can do to improve the state’s maternal and infant health outcomes.

“These presentations and conferences bring together doctors, nurses, and midwives from across the state of Kansas to collaborate and work to answer the questions – Why are mothers and infants dying in Kansas and what are we going to do about it?,” Terrah said.

Together We Can Make a Difference

Stormont Vail is working to provide patients, both moms, and infants, with the highest quality health outcomes through collaboration, innovation, and communication. By uniting all three levels – the campus, health system, and state level, Terrah is determined to ensure all are active participants in the care and support our mothers and infants need.