Page 10 - 2017 Community Benefit Report | Summa Health
P. 10
Getting Babies to
Their First Birthdays
The rate of infant mortality in our area is sobering. Among our most successful interventions has been
Ohio ranks as the fifth-worse state in the nation in Maternal-fetal Opiate Medical Home Care (MOMH)
overall infant mortality, and at the bottom for African- program for opiate-addicted mothers and babies.
American infants. What’s more, according to the Ohio Provided in concert with the Summa Health Family
Equity Institute, Akron is one of nine communities Medical Center and Addiction Medicine, MOMH
accounting for 86 percent of black infant deaths in provides care beyond pregnancy with monthly
Ohio in 2016. standardized visits throughout the child’s first year.
E orts have involved the Ohio Perinatal Quality
Summa Health is committed to tackling this staggering Collaborative (OPQC), a statewide consortium of
issue of infant mortality with the goal of helping more perinatal clinicians, hospitals, policy makers and
babies in our area make it to their first birthdays. governmental entities that aims to reduce preterm
Heavily invested in this cause, we’ve implemented a births and improve birth outcomes across Ohio.
number of multi-faceted strategies focused on quality,
policy, prevention, education and access to care.
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