Center for Excellence in Rural Health-Hazard

Trover’s women’s health center receives national award

STAFF REPORT

MADISONVILLE − Trover Health System’s Center for Women’s Health recently received notification that it has earned a national award based on its innovative services and continued efforts in quality improvement and access to care.

The Coalition for Excellence in Maternal and Child Health Epidemiology and the 16 organizations that sponsor the National MCH Epidemiology Awards selected the Center for Women’s Health as the recipient of the 2011 Effective Practice − Community Level Award. The award recognizes organizations that have made significant contributions to public health practice in maternal and child health through the effective use of data, epidemiology and applied research.

“Trover was honored to receive the 2011 MCH Epidemiology Award for effective practice at the community level,” said LeAnn Todd-Langston, director of the Center for Women’s Health. “This recognition validates our years of effort as a rural health organization willing to leverage scant resources, apply cutting-edge evidence-based processes, cultivate a patient-centered environment, increase state and national perinatal networking opportunities, and continually strive to improve maternal and child health outcomes through a sustainable and reproducible model.”

Todd-Langston and selected staff members will travel to New Orleans to accept the award during a Dec. 15 luncheon at the annual MCH Epidemiology Conference.

Among the Center for Women’s Health’s innovations was a group prenatal care delivery model that also included oral health care. Beginning in 2006, the women’s center collaborated with the University of Kentucky College of Dentistry and the Centering Healthcare Institute to develop CenteringPregnancySmiles™. This model, targeted toward Trover’s Medicaid patients, allowed expectant mothers to receive a dental examination, cleaning, treatment if needed, and a follow-up dental examination later in the pregnancy to verify the absence of oral infection.

As a result of this program, which was featured in a 2009 Report from the Field in the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, pre-term and low birth-weight deliveries were significantly reduced, improving the infants’ health and saving an estimated $2 million in direct health care costs.

The women’s center also participated in a program known as “Healthy Babies are Worth the Wait,” in which it provided expectant mothers, their families, health professionals and the community with a broadly coordinated combination of clinical, educational and public health interventions.

In addition to the MCH Epidemiology Award, the Center for Women’s Health’s other recognitions include a 2011 William J. Gies Award for Outstanding Innovation, a 2008 Outreach Scholarship W.K. Kellogg Foundation Engagement Award, and a Centering Pregnancy™ Program 2007 Best in Practice Honor.