NYC Health + Hospitals launched a new $1.2 million Cardio-Obstetrics program to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity among women of color by focusing on heart disease during and after pregnancy. The pilot program will be offered at NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County, which serves a community with high rates of hypertension and other chronic diseases.
The Cardio-Obstetric practice will target patients’ heart disease or its risk factors, including hypertension, obesity and diabetes, from the prenatal period for up to a year postpartum, according to a press release. The care team will include obstetricians, cardiologists, anesthesiologists, nurses, emergency department physicians and other specialists, as well as non-clinical staff in pediatrics and the emergency department.
In New York State, Black women are 4 to 5 times more likely than white women to die during pregnancy or in the year after, the press release said. More than 1 in 4 of maternal deaths nationwide are due to heart disease.
"Cardiac dysfunction caused by hypertension and obesity can play a huge role in maternal mortality, but it’s treatable and preventable,” said NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County Cardiologist Suzette Graham-Hill, MD, the clinical lead of the new Cardio-Obstetrics program. “If cardiac conditions are left untreated, we are looking at a high-risk pregnancy, even in a young woman. That’s why this collaboration is so groundbreaking and so important.”
Two local community-based organizations, the Caribbean Women’s Health Association and Life of Hope, will serve as initial sites in a larger community outreach strategy to provide health education in central Brooklyn about heart disease during and after pregnancy and support warm referrals to the program.
The Cardio-Obstetrics program aligns with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologist (ACOG) District II Safe Motherhood Initiative and is funded in part by Robin Hood.
The Cardio-Obstetric program at Kings County Hospital will support pregnant and postpartum patients in the following ways:
- Encourage pregnant patients to begin prenatal care as soon as possible, in particular through partnerships with local community-based organizations.
- Manage patients’ hypertension, diabetes, and obesity, as well as other identified chronic conditions
- Address social determinants of health and encourage healthy lifestyle changes, including diet, exercise, and other factors through the Maternal Home
- Ensure connections to behavioral health supports.
- Encourage patients at 36 weeks of pregnancy to contact Virtual ExpressCare, the health system’s on-demand telehealth service, to address emergent needs in real time with a board-certified clinician. Virtual ExpressCare’s maternal and postpartum care will be available around the clock every day.
