Community based maternal health agencies have traditionally provided pregnant women and new parents with outreach, education, and linkages to health and social services in their homes and clinics based on the assumption that women are not working or have sufficient work flexibility to keep medical appointments. Welfare reform has imposed requirements for education, training, employment and childcare, challenging agencies to help their clients manage their health care and their lives, with new service components and changed methods of service delivery. Maternal health agencies must therefore reinvent themselves and their programs. Three years ago, the Maternity Care Coalition (MCC) made a strategic investment in technology to develop and deploy their interactive case management and reporting system, Changing Tables™. The system is now a change agent. MCC analyzes system data, in connection with other research, to identify factors such as social isolation, domestic abuse, and substance abuse, which affect women's health and their ability to care for their children, and uses the data to redesign their programs and apply for funding for new interventions. MCC staff worked collaboratively with the system designers during the development of the system. A more experienced MCC staff participated in a Changing Tables™ "summit" to modify the system so that advocates can capture the new programmatic information and can manage the larger number of outreach contacts, education and referrals their clients now require. This presentation will discuss the new interventions, demonstrate the "summit" process and the modifications to Changing Tables™ that support MCC's expanded program direction.
Learning Objectives: Understand how data system use can facilitate program change Learn process of system modification to support new requirements
Keywords: Maternal Health, Information Systems
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: Salkowitz Associates, LLC is a consultant providing project management, strategic planning and systems development to MCC