Bootheel Perinatal Network Regional Cross–sector Collaborative
Since March 2022, Consilience Group has supported the Bootheel Perinatal Network (BPN), led by the Saint Francis Health System in the southeastern “Bootheel” of Missouri, part of the Mississippi Delta Region. BPN coordinates holistic care for high-risk pregnancies, improving birth outcomes in the region, and co-leads alongside Bootheel Babies and Families, a shared referral platform and community information exchange for perinatal, early childhood, and whole family providers. BPN was a member of the inaugural cohort of the Rural Maternity and Obstetrics Management Strategies (RMOMS) Program through the United States Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). During that time, our Consilience Group team supported BPN in establishing business requirements, configuring and maintaining a HIPAA-compliant database, reporting data to HRSA, and visualizing the data in a shared HIPAA-compliant dashboard to support the BPN partners in understanding their collective impact and opportunities for improved coordination. With the expansion of BPN through the securing of Office of Minority Health (OMH) Healthy Families Community-Based Perinatal Health Initiative (COPHI) funding, we continue to provide strategic advisement, data and quality improvement infrastructure, and sustainability support for increased integration of community-based maternal support services (COMSS) into the perinatal system of care.
Consilience Group, in partnership with BPN, presented our preliminary findings in March 2024 at the Fostering Health Equity in Missouri: A Focus on Mothers & Infants annual convening sponsored by The Uplift Connection, Missouri Hospital Association, Missouri Perinatal Quality Collaborative, Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, and Missouri Foundation for Health. Our presentation, Identifying & Addressing Social Drivers of Health in a Clinical- Community Integration Model: Analyzing the Effectiveness of the PRAPARE Tool, investigates the importance of patient-provider relationships, the limitations of a tool alone to capture the complexities faced by families experiencing high-risk pregnancies, and importantly, explores ways to improve person-centered SDoH assessments to ensure equitable health outcomes.