📍Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Growing the Maternal Health Workforce
Challenge:
Maternal healthcare is critical for women during and after pregnancy, but it is often difficult for patients to access maternal healthcare services. It is also a challenge for healthcare organizations to recruit staff with this type of expertise.
Solution:
With funding from HRSA Primary Care Training Enhancement – Community Prevention and Maternal Health (PCTE-CPMH) program, the Perelman School of Medicine developed internal initiatives and external partnerships to address the shortage of primary care physicians trained in population health and maternal health outcomes, particularly in rural and under-resourced areas. As part of this effort, they developed the Primary Care Obstetrics and Maternal Outcomes Training Enhancement (PROMOTE OB) to bring a comprehensive approach to workforce development. The program includes the following features:
- Residency education and support enhancement: Created an obstetrical track within their existing family medicine residency program, including curricula on perinatal opioid use disorder care, high-risk pregnancy management, and group prenatal care. Provided mentorship, competency reviews, and career panel discussions for residents interested in obstetrics.
- Multi-institutional rural and community-based practice: Established a rural rotation at Androscoggin Valley Hospital, exposing residents to full-scope family medicine, obstetrics, and opioid use disorder treatment. Worked to address gaps in maternity care access due to the closure of a rural hospital. Built partnerships with primary care associations, Area Health Education Centers (AHECs), and rural/urban Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) providers.
- Provider education & support: Developed a learning collaborative that included sessions on early pregnancy loss and newborn care. Launched virtual grand rounds and peer-to-peer clinical consultations to support maternal health providers.
- FQHC partnerships & sustainable workforce strategies: Expanded their ACTIONetwork (Access, Continuity, and Transitions Network) – a relational model that supports coordinated care, shared case discussions, provider staffing and recruitment, and ongoing operational and educational collaboration – to explicitly include rural health centers.
Impact:
✅ Increased interest in family medicine obstetric care among residents.
✅ Expanded access to high-quality obstetric training for primary care physicians.
✅ Strengthened FQHC capacity to provide prenatal and postnatal care.
✅ Enhanced workforce retention through mentorship.
✅ Strengthened collaboration and support between primary care and maternal-fetal medicine specialists.