Hospital CEO: Maternal care must be at the center of state’s rural health care strategy
By Kent Nicaud | Originally published by Mississippi Today
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In Mississippi, giving birth can be a matter of life and death.
We have the highest maternal mortality rate in the nation, and since 2014, over 3,500 infants have died, often due to preventable circumstances. The numbers are so stark that Mississippi is now under a state-declared public health emergency
Too many women, especially those living in rural communities, face long travel times to necessary appointments and limited access to specialists during pregnancy. This leads to delayed prenatal care and potentially deadly complications. According to the March of Dimes, over half of Mississippi counties are maternity care deserts. Compounding this lack of access, OB-GYN shortages and labor and delivery closures are projected to worsen in the next few years.
These challenges aren’t new, but new federal funding through the Rural Health Transformation Program, or RHTP, offers some hope for the future.
Mississippi received $206 million for the first year of the program, giving the state a chance to turn crisis into change for health care in vulnerable rural communities. Part of this funding relies on a statewide assessment of rural health needs. To ensure quality access to care for our mothers and babies, that assessment must explicitly include maternal health as a central priority.
Once that is established, health systems and state leaders must align on how to improve care for vulnerable moms and babies by identifying critical areas of need and achievable solutions.
Technology alone isn’t the answer, but it’s part of it
Every state participating in the Rural Health Transformation Program has identified telehealth as part of its strategy. That reflects a simple truth: Technology, when thoughtfully integrated, can help extend scarce clinical expertise and stabilize care delivery in places where traditional models no longer work.
For maternal health especially, telehealth technology offers a rare opportunity to address complications earlier, bringing life-saving expertise to communities that have gone without accessible care for decades.
High-risk pregnancies often require input and care from maternal-fetal medicine (MFM) clinicians, expert OB-GYN specialists who are in short supply nationwide, and rarely based in rural areas. Without access to that expertise, local care teams are forced to make difficult decisions, including transferring patients far from home or managing complex cases without specialty backup.
At Memorial Hospital Gulfport, the only hospital with a Level III NICU on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, we have seen firsthand how rising volumes of high-risk pregnancies, combined with regional labor and delivery closures, can strain even well-resourced systems. Ensuring timely access to specialty expertise became critical for our patients’ safety, facilitating our search for telehealth options to close that gap.
This past November, we partnered with Obtelecare and Teledoc to launch a 24/7 inpatient tele maternal-fetal medicine program.
By integrating real-time maternal-fetal medicine specialists into our patient workflows, our teams are now better equipped to manage complex cases, support continuity of care and reduce unnecessary travel for families already under stress. Importantly, this was about strengthening local clinicians, not replacing them.
Workforce stability is just as urgent as access
Technology has always been powered by people. And with many rural hospitals facing the very real possibility of losing obstetric services altogether because they cannot recruit or retain enough clinicians to staff labor and delivery units, entire regions can become maternity care deserts.
It’s time to recognize that change won’t happen until we rethink how we are delivering care itself. When health systems solely rely on traditional models of care, outcomes for both patients and clinicians suffer. We must transform our models to better integrate advanced-practice clinicians, such as certified nurse-midwives, and provide predictable coverage through OB hospitalists who can help keep these units open. They also help reduce burnout, which remains one of the biggest threats to the maternal health workforce nationwide.
The Rural Health Transformation Program was designed to support exactly these kinds of solutions: models that improve access, stabilize the workforce and modernize care delivery in ways that fit the realities and needs of rural communities.
Set clear goals and set aside money for them
We can’t continue to ignore the struggles our mothers and infants face in hopes that it will get better over time when the data shows exactly the opposite.
As Mississippi determines how to invest its Rural Health Transformation Program funding, the governor’s office, working with the Mississippi Division of Medicaid and the Department of Health, should set clear, measurable goals for improving maternal health and designate a defined portion of the available federal funds to help rural hospitals adopt scalable, proven maternal health solutions that expand access, stabilize staffing, and modernize care delivery.
The choices made here will shape care for years to come. Putting maternal health at the center of those decisions is one of the clearest paths to meaningful, measurable impact for rural Mississippi families.
Kent Nicaud leads Memorial Health System as president and chief executive officer. He has overseen major expansions, including Memorial Hospital Biloxi and enhanced services in Jackson County, while advancing value‑based care through outpatient surgery centers, diagnostic facilities and walk‑in clinics aimed at reducing costs and improving access. He chairs the Mississippi Healthcare Collaborative, representing 70% of the state’s patients and driving statewide improvements in maternal‑fetal care and health equity. With more than two decades of experience in both nonprofit and private health care, he continues to champion innovation, quality and sustainable growth for Mississippi communities.
This article was originally published by Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Source: Original Article
