Sunday, Sep 26 - Expo Hall Opening
Sunday, Sep 26 - Job Fair
Monday,
Sep 27 - AWHONN's Block Party
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Title: It Takes More Than a Village; It Takes Collaboration Statewide to Ensure a Healthy Family
Discipline: Women’s Health (WH), Newborn (NB), Childbearing (CB)
Learning Objectives:
Submission Description:- State three characteristics of New Jersey’s maternal child health demographics that would prompt stakeholders to formulate a plan for action.
- Discuss the importance of the diverse membership of the Prenatal Care Task Force.
- Describe the Task Force recommendations and how they have influenced state MCH policy.
Improving access to early prenatal care is essential to promoting the health of New Jersey mothers, infants, and families. Efforts to improve access to early prenatal care must take a multi-pronged approach in order to reduce barriers to prenatal care. Access to health insurance coverage early in the pregnancy is vital for early prenatal care. Ensuring that pregnant women have health insurance during their first trimester of pregnancy would improve receipt of early prenatal care. This is only one of the barriers we see in preventing women in receiving the care they need to ensure a healthy pregnancy outcome. Despite major expansions of health care access during the 1990s, one in five women giving birth in New Jersey in 2006 still failed to receive first trimester prenatal care. Mothers most likely to benefit from early prenatal care because of their higher risk of poor birth outcomes remain even less likely to receive it.
When The National Women’s Law Center published their 2007 edition of Making the Grade on Women’s Health; New Jersey ranked 40th in women receiving first trimester prenatal care. Recognizing that this statistic reflects a critical need that must be addressed to ensure the health of women and children in this state, the Department of Health and Senior Services Commissioner convened the Prenatal Care Task Force in February 2008. The Task Force’s charge was to make recommendations to improve access to first trimester prenatal care in NJ and to increase the number of women seeking and receiving care within the first trimester of their pregnancy with the ultimate goal of improving health outcomes. The Task Force comprised of leaders and experts in the field of Maternal and Child Health was convened. After just four months of work they produced their report that included a summary of findings and outlined recommendations focusing on four areas considered vital to successfully begin addressing the issues. These areas included preconception and prenatal education, access to reproductive health care services and practitioners, systems improvement, and evaluation.
Early prenatal care offers the opportunity undertake a comprehensive needs assessment that is important not only to the current pregnancy, but also to the future health of the mother, the infant, and the family. Using the Task Force report as a template for an RFP, the state of NJ has now requested new, innovative, comprehensive programs be submitted for funding. With over $3 million dedicated to fund programs their hope is that this will provide the impetus providers and practitioners will need to work collaboratively statewide to maximize resources and ensure the lives of the women and children of NJ are healthy.
For the first time in recent history MCH providers are reaching out to each other and other interested stakeholders. Positive changes are beginning to occur in professional communities, among state agencies, with consumers. Some say it’s about time we all work together while others say why? Only time will tell, but it looks like we are off to a very good start.
When The National Women’s Law Center published their 2007 edition of Making the Grade on Women’s Health; New Jersey ranked 40th in women receiving first trimester prenatal care. Recognizing that this statistic reflects a critical need that must be addressed to ensure the health of women and children in this state, the Department of Health and Senior Services Commissioner convened the Prenatal Care Task Force in February 2008. The Task Force’s charge was to make recommendations to improve access to first trimester prenatal care in NJ and to increase the number of women seeking and receiving care within the first trimester of their pregnancy with the ultimate goal of improving health outcomes. The Task Force comprised of leaders and experts in the field of Maternal and Child Health was convened. After just four months of work they produced their report that included a summary of findings and outlined recommendations focusing on four areas considered vital to successfully begin addressing the issues. These areas included preconception and prenatal education, access to reproductive health care services and practitioners, systems improvement, and evaluation.
Early prenatal care offers the opportunity undertake a comprehensive needs assessment that is important not only to the current pregnancy, but also to the future health of the mother, the infant, and the family. Using the Task Force report as a template for an RFP, the state of NJ has now requested new, innovative, comprehensive programs be submitted for funding. With over $3 million dedicated to fund programs their hope is that this will provide the impetus providers and practitioners will need to work collaboratively statewide to maximize resources and ensure the lives of the women and children of NJ are healthy.
For the first time in recent history MCH providers are reaching out to each other and other interested stakeholders. Positive changes are beginning to occur in professional communities, among state agencies, with consumers. Some say it’s about time we all work together while others say why? Only time will tell, but it looks like we are off to a very good start.
