4 Principles, Real Impact: How Hospitals Are Advancing Maternal Health

Despite medical advancements, maternal mortality rates have doubled since 1987. Yet more than 80% of pregnancy-related deaths have been deemed preventable.

We know that behind every statistic is a mother and child. Hospitals across the country are rewriting the story of maternal care — one data point, one mom, one family and one partnership at a time.

Working alongside hospitals and health systems, the American Hospital Association’s Better Health for Mothers and Babies (BHMB) initiative aims to eliminate preventable maternal deaths and reduce pregnancy-related morbidity across the United States. This initiative is built on four core principles: Examine quality and outcomes data to guide strategy; consider the causes of disparities in health outcomes; involve patients and community in their own care; and engage the workforce.

During the summer of 2025, the AHA launched its BHMB webinar series, organized around the four core principles, where hospital leaders and clinicians shared how they are putting them into action.

The first session focused on the power of data and quality metrics and featured Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association, Tuba City Regional Health Care Corporation and Regional One Health. Vicki Buchda, director of care improvement from Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association stated, “We can’t treat what we don’t measure — and we can’t improve what we don’t share.”

Speakers highlighted how Arizona hospitals united under the Alliance For Innovation On Maternal Health (AIM) Collaborative implemented maternal safety bundles to standardize care for hypertension — a leading cause of maternal mortality. Within just a few years, hospitals engaged in the collaborative reported time to treatment improved from 6% to over 80%. In addition to the hypertension bundle, Tuba City Regional Healthcare Corporation, which serves rural and tribal communities, distributed blood pressure cuffs through community grants and offered patient-centered training to clinicians and nurses. This resulted in 100% on time hypertension treatment. Regional One Health in Memphis introduced a nurse-driven hypertension protocol, empowering staff to act swiftly — raising compliance to 100% treatment within 60 minutes.

In the second webinar, leaders from MedStar and Carle Health showcased how redesigning care models around patients’ needs can dramatically improve outcomes. MedStar Health’s Safe Babies, Safe Moms program provides a “continuum of care where obstetricians, pediatricians, psychiatrists, and social workers all sit at the same table — because a mother’s health and a baby’s health are inseparable,” shared Tamika C. Auguste, M.D., chair of the Women’s and Infants’ Services at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. Outcomes included decreased preeclampsia, preterm births, and NICU and ED admissions. Meanwhile, Carle Health’s home visiting program pairs nurses, social workers and early educators to work alongside mothers from pregnancy through early childhood — achieving 100% prenatal engagement and stronger child development outcomes.

But numbers alone don’t tell the whole story. The third webinar shifted the focus to listening — really listening — to patients and communities. The DC Perinatal Quality Collaborative invited mothers to help write policies, redesign communications and hold systems accountable. “Listening isn’t enough. We have to share power — let them lead, design and hold us accountable,” shared Yolette A. Gray, senior director of maternal and child health initiatives at the District of Columbia Hospital Association. This work improved postpartum follow-up rates from 9% to 73% and led to new patient-centered care scripts and bundled postpartum diabetes testing.

At Temple Health, Sharon Kurfuerst, executive director of the Temple Women & Families Campus, explained, “We didn’t build the Temple Women & Families facility and invite the community in — we invited the community in for listening sessions and then built the hospital.” Other initiatives like the LENA App, Direct Referral Unit and MAMA Model help patients connect to care and social supports within the Temple Health system.

The lessons are clear across the webinar series:

• Standardized data collection drives accountability and sustainability and accelerates improvement.
• Combining data with storytelling helps humanize outcomes and build commitment. As Katherine Glaser, M.D., from Tuba City Regional Health Care Corporation, said, “A good day for a doctor might still be the hardest day of a patient’s life. That perspective changes everything.”
• Hire from the community and empower patients to be leaders of their own care.
• Equip nurses and multidisciplinary teams to act quickly and confidently.
• Co-design solutions with patients and communities to build trust.

The work continues with a focus on the teams who make it possible. Join the last webinar in the series, Empowering Interdisciplinary Maternal Care Teams, on March 5 12 p.m. ET to learn how Hartford Healthcare and Jackson County Memorial Hospital are leveraging the unique skills and expertise of multiple health care professionals and implementing models such as TeamBirth to improve decision-making and maternal health outcomes.

Visit the full webinar series to dig deeper into strategies you too can implement.

Aisha Syeda, MPH, senior program manager for AHA’s Division of Health Outcomes and Care Transformation