More Than 160 Texas Hospitals Join Effort to Reduce Maternal Mortality
News Release
May 31, 2018
The Texas Department of State Health Services’ new TexasAIM program has enrolled 166 hospitals in the effort to decrease maternal mortality and other severe pregnancy complications. That means approximately two-thirds of the Texas hospitals that provide labor and delivery services have committed to adopting clinical practices proven to reduce complications that threaten the lives of mothers and babies.
TexasAIM hospitals will first target maternal hemorrhage, the most common cause of maternal death during and immediately after delivery in Texas, by implementing a maternal safety bundle on hemorrhage. Bundles are sets of clinical guidelines and practices developed by the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health, AIM. Research has shown that when hospitals consistently implement maternal safety bundles, they’re better able to identify, respond to and prevent severe complications and have better results for patients.
“TexasAIM will save lives,” said DSHS Commissioner Dr. John Hellerstedt. “I’m pleased that so many of our partners in health care are committed to working together to improve maternal health in Texas.”
In addition to the effort to reduce hemorrhage, Texas is helping AIM develop a new bundle on opioid use in pregnancy. A small group of hospitals will pilot that bundle beginning this summer, and it will be available more broadly next year, followed by a bundle to reduce complications from high blood pressure in pregnancy.
From 2012 to 2015, there were 382 confirmed pregnancy-associated deaths among Texas women within a year of delivery. Texas is focused on reducing these kinds of deaths in a number of ways, including better understanding the causes of pregnancy-associated deaths through research and the Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Task Force’s reviews of individual cases, working to improve parents’ preconception health, and engaging in improvements to health care such as TexasAIM.
DSHS, the Texas Hospital Association, Texas Medical Association, Texas Academy of Family Physicians and American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists will host a TexasAIM leadership summit and orientation for participating hospitals on Monday. Media are invited to attend and learn more about the program Monday, June 4, 8:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. at the University of Texas Commons Conference Center, 10100 Burnet Road, Building 137.
A list of the hospitals enrolled in TexasAIM is available at /news/releases/2018/TexasAIMEnrolledHospitals.aspx.
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(News Media Contact: ChrisVan Deusen, DSHS Director of Media Relations, 512-776-7119)
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