Enhancing Access

Our team has years of experience partnering with State Hospital Associations and Perinatal Quality Collaboratives to advance maternal health standards across the country. Over the past 3 years, we have worked extensively alongside the Missouri Hospital Association (MHA) and Missouri Perinatal Quality Collaborative (MO PQC), with much of our work centered around access and care deserts.  Now, we are employing our skills to survey the state, ideate, and prototype around a resource and referral hub for maternity care. With 32.6% of counties defined as maternity care deserts in 2024, ongoing OB closures across the country, and systemic barriers like transportation, access to quality maternity care remains one of the biggest challenges to better maternal health for all. 

Programmatic tools to Improve Access

 
Access is a complex issue with no simple solution due to systemic factors and unique community pain points. Our team employs human centered design and programming to engage communities in understanding the root of their barriers to accessible maternity care and the most effective path forward.  

Specific tools we employ in conversations regarding access to maternity care include: 

 
Empathy Maps: These canvases encourage administrators to step into the shoes of providers and providers to step into the shoes of patients – considering their goals, needs, experiences. Empathy maps serve as an extremely effective level-setting tool to de-silos different perspectives. 
Persona Canvases: These canvases guide users in focusing on a specific issue – in this case access – and considering it from both positive and negative lenses. What are the barriers (headaches, fears, negative trends)? But also, what are the enablers (opportunities, hopes, positive trends)? Persona canvases are an effective way to flesh out the nuances of an otherwise vague and overarching topic such as access to care. 

The Big Idea: Our goal is always action. Programming is never complete without a promise and plan for change. The Big Idea canvases guide users in developing a high-level solution for access in their community after their preceding discussion of the different needs and nuances at play.

The Show-Me State: Access & Fragmentation of Care in Missouri

In 2024, we drove to all four corners of Missouri, surveying patients, providers, administrators, and other key stakeholders on maternal health in the state’s biggest maternity care deserts. Unsurprisingly, access to quality maternity care was an especially emphasized pain point. Aggregate statewide data showed that accessible and equitable care was the number one hope for the future of maternal health in Missouri. Furthermore, at the conclusion of our sessions, 43% of participants wrote aim statements focused on improving access to care.

In 2025, we reignited our work in the “Show Me” state, this time looking in-depth at the provider and patient experience throughout the perinatal care journey. Fragmentation of care, and in-particular in-patient to out-patient transitions, was constantly mentioned as a barrier to accessible and quality care. The need for closed loop referral systems and collaboration among different units of the maternity care team was discovered as a burning platform in Missouri

Envisioning the Future: A Statewide Resource and Referral Hub for Maternity Care

Our team is currently working with partners in the state of Missouri to conduct an environmental scan that will inform the development of a digital referral hub for maternity care. The goal of this envisioned digital solution is to create seamless in-patient to out-patient transitions for birthing patients and ensure that their diverse needs are met across the entirety of their perinatal journey – both pre and post partum. Our team aims to understand how existing community resources and referral platforms can be bridged into an accessible, user-friendly, and centralized hub in order to reduce maternity care fragmentation across the state. Contact us to learn more about our vision for maternal health in Missouri or for general inquiries about referral platforms and digital solutions to maternity care access and fragmentation. 

Contact Us

To learn more about our work with maternal health leaders across the country, or to ideate around how to best leverage your state’s RHTP and other funding to improve maternity care outcomes, contact us below. We would love to chat!

ICAHN

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Introduction

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The Objective

This is the objective section. Here, we clearly state why we were hired, what the goals are, what the metrics for success are, and what the macro impact of the project is. Questions to remember: Why is this work important to this company? What do they have to gain? Lose? What have they lost already by not tackling this issue?
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The Process

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