Empowered Patient Podcast

Lora Sparkman, an RN and VP and Partner of Clinical Solutions, Patient Safety, and Quality at Relias, highlights the high maternal mortality rate in the US and the factors that contribute to it.  Lora emphasizes the need for standardization of definitions and a better understanding of the social determinants of health that influence the success of a pregnancy, including the need for pre-pregnancy and post-pregnancy healthcare. Digital technology is bringing advancements to healthcare education and helping overcome geographic barriers to improve outcomes and reduce maternal morbidity and mortality. Lora explains, "In some cases, we're getting our hands around the real story versus some variation across states and definitions, and how death was categorized, those types of things. Putting that all behind us, there's been a lot more work and effort at the federal and national levels to standardize definitions and categories."   "There's been kind of a shift we've seen over the last couple of years, which is we'v