The University of Arkansas for Medical Science (UAMS) recently launched an online maternal health scorecard to provide crucial data that could improve the well-being of mothers and babies across the state.
The Arkansas Maternal Health Scorecard is an interactive and user-friendly collection of maternal health data from the Arkansas Maternal Mortality Review Committee (MMRC), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Pregnancy Risk Assessment and Monitoring System (PRAMS), the CDC Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (Wonder), and the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Fast Stats website.
The scorecard will be used to inform the public as well as maternal health stakeholders, community organizations, and healthcare providers. Development of the scorecard was supported by a five-year grant to UAMS by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration that established the PRIMROSE Project.
“By increasing the accessibility of maternal health data, the Arkansas Maternal Health Scorecard will raise awareness about the need for stakeholders to work together on improving maternal health in Arkansas," said Jennifer Callaghan-Koru, PhD, an associate professor at the UAMS Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health and director of the PRIMROSE Project. Maternal health stakeholders can use the data to plan programs, understand what factors influence data indicators in maternal health and advocate for change.
Maternal Mortality Review Committees (MMRCs) are part of a national strategy to improve maternal outcomes in the U.S. by generating data on the causes of maternal deaths and developing recommendations to prevent such outcomes. However, getting MMRCs’ findings into the hands of providers can prove tricky.
In a research letter published earlier this year, Callaghan-Koru and colleagues reported that fewer than one in three labor and delivery staff in Arkansas were aware of MMRC findings.
UAMS researchers with the PRIMROSE Project also assessed 80 maternal health dashboards from various state and local health organizations in the U.S. and found that only two dashboards incorporated data from MMRCs, despite findings that MMRC data can contribute to reducing maternal mortality.
“The data for understanding maternal health in the United States comes from a variety of different sources,” said Callaghan-Koru. “Most of the maternal health data sites in other states include data from only one or two sources. The biggest opportunity we saw to improve maternal health data access was to provide a one-stop shop for key indicators from four distinct data sources. We also provide explanations of why the indicators are important, where the data come from and what their limitations are.”
Maternal healthcare leaders in Arkansas are already seeing the benefits of accessing data through the scorecard.
“The Arkansas Maternal Health Scorecard gives providers, patients or anyone interested in maternal health in Arkansas an easy-to-read, factual account of the needs in Arkansas,” said Nirvana Manning, MD, who heads UAMS’ Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. “This new resource will greatly benefit the ongoing collaborative work to improve our state’s outcomes for mothers and babies.”
The dashboard can be accessed online at https://ar.maternalhealth.us.