Maternal death continues to be an international standard to measure a nation’s commitment to maternal health and access to quality health care. The Commonwealth Fund reported the maternal mortality rate for the U.S. was more than three times the rate for other developed countries.
Every maternal death is a tragedy. Historically, over 700 women died each year in the United States due to pregnancy or delivery complications. Similarly, while the Oklahoma maternal mortality rate had been decreasing, the rate for 2019-2021 substantially increased from 25.2 in the previous reporting period (2018-2020) to 31.0 deaths per 100,000 live births.
Financial support and assistance from this funding opportunity will enable the Oklahoma State Department of Health (OSDH) Maternal and Child Health Service (MCH) to more efficiently and comprehensively identify and review deaths among those pregnant or within one year of termination of pregnancy.
Additional staff available to abstract deaths for MMRC review will increase the number of cases able to be reviewed at each MMRC meeting, and in turn decrease the amount of time between case identification and review. Additionally, the lack of informant interview information limits the data available for MMRC reviews and the addition of an informant interview staff position will add the ability to conduct interviews which will increase the richness of data and additional perspectives with which to assess pertinent details of the death, especially the effect of discrimination.
In addition, access to the state Health Information Exchange will help abstractors identify where the decedents accessed healthcare more efficiently and eliminate some of the gaps in information currently available for individuals who died outside a healthcare setting.
Additional and more timely data will be used to better inform decisions and recommendations from the MMRC in efforts to address system level changes to prevent future maternal deaths. Every case review represents a family whose lives were torn apart by an untimely death that could potentially have been prevented.
Collaboration between local, state, and national partners is critical in gaining a wider understanding of root causes of maternal mortality and morbidity and sharing successful interventions for improving healthcare across the reproductive life span. Letters of Support are included for key partners in Oklahoma including OSDH Vital Records Division and Center for Health Statistics, Oklahoma Health Care Authority, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Oklahoma Perinatal Quality Improvement Collaborative, and Southern Plains Tribal Health Board.