Sarasota Memorial Hospital (SMH) has announced it is participating in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Perinatal Improvement Collaborative. The collaborative includes many of the nation’s leading hospitals caring for diverse populations in all 50 states, using real-time data, analytics and performance improvement methodologies to improve care for mothers and babies across the country. SMH delivered more than 4,000 babies in 2021.

The HHS Perinatal Improvement Collaborative will test interventions and protocols to reduce preventable deaths and complications among mothers and their babies. The program aims to quickly generate solutions for safer obstetric and neonatal care that can be implemented nationwide. The initiative strives to address troubling disparities in birth outcomes and examine how care might be reliably tailored to mothers with different needs through reliable and timely data; a broader lens of investigation; and identification of disparities. The effort will be guided by an external advisory panel comprising more than 20 expert clinicians and thought leaders, and patient partners from MoMMA’s Voices, a coalition of advocacy organizations focused on leading causes of maternal mortality and morbidity.