The South Carolina Maternal Health Innovation Collaborative (SCMHIC) is built on prior successes within the South Carolina Birth Outcomes Initiative (SCBOI) and existing strong capacity to access diverse sources of maternal health data. Being able to leverage this existing foundation brings power in partnership to innovate, collaborate, and elevate to transform maternal health together.

SCMHI engages community partners and individuals with living expertise, all united by a shared goal: to turn the tide on maternal morbidity and mortality. Our Aims seek to avoid replication, and by building on the strengths of these individual initiatives, we can improve maternal outcomes together.

These strengths facilitate SCMHIC aims to develop its newly formed Maternal Health Task Force, improve access to maternal care services, identify and address workforce needs, increase data reporting capacity, and foster maternal health literacy and empowerment by providing access to culturally responsive and linguistically appropriate resources. The scope of work is grounded by a commitment to engage community partners and birthing persons with living expertise.

Having the SCMHIC housed within SCDPH allows the grant’s intentions of collaboration and promotion of innovation to directly benefit the work of our state’s Title V program and SC Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Review Committee (SCMMMRC), which are also administered by SCDPH. Likewise, our core implementation and evaluation partner, the University of South Carolina Institute for Families in Society (IFS), has provided technical assistance, consultation, and evaluation to SCBOI since its inception, allowing SCMHIC to support existing quality improvement efforts, expand simulation training to non-obstetric providers, and identify maternal care service area gaps. It will take this power in partnership with the support of the core leadership team to effectively change the system of care.

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Our vision is a South Carolina where every birthing person thrives within a unified, forward-thinking, and inclusive maternal health environment. We aspire to lead in transforming maternal health outcomes through collaborative efforts, ensuring that all South Carolinians have access to equitable and compassionate care, enabling them to flourish.

Overarching Program Goals from 2023-2028

The overarching goal is to improve maternal health outcomes by collaboration and promoting innovation in maternal health to advance, develop, foster, and support innovations across four essential drivers for change—maternal health service delivery systems, workforce development, data collection and reporting, and community engagement through diverse partnerships and supported efforts. This will be accomplished via the following objectives:

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The following SCMHIC innovations will be implemented during Years 2-4 iteratively with feedback from community partners, OB clinical educators, persons with living expertise, and MHTF members. A final evaluation and dissemination of findings will occur in year 5.

1. Implementation of a low-fidelity SimCOACH^TM curriculum that will offer virtual learning sessions in rural areas and education of ED staff.
2. Internships to students attending USC’s MCH LEAP and Catalyst Center to address maternal health provider gaps, including workforce training addressing retention/burnout and respectful care.
3. To foster empowerment, development of provider handouts and online materials for birthing persons that will integrate existing maternal health literacy content, input from persons with living expertise, and linkages to existing community and clinical resources.
4. Establishment of a mobile maternal health literacy application highlighting data at the local level that leverages machine learning techniques and input from community-based partners.
5. Creation of a birthing persons advisory council.
6. Implementation of a small grants program that will address resource gaps identified by the SCMHIC MHTF.

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Core Leadership Team

Click on a member's name to view an introduction and bio.
For more information, please contact Ladrea S. Williams-Briggs, DrPH, MS, South Carolina Maternal Health Innovation Grant Manager (willials@dph.sc.gov).

SC Department of Public Health		KRISTEN SHEALY, MSPH Principal Investigator Email: shealykh@dph.sc.gov
		LADREA S. WILLIAMS, DrPH, MS Grant Manager Email: WilliaLS@dph.sc.gov
		NICHOLAS RESCINITI, PhD, MPH, CPH Senior Epidemiologist Email: rescinnv@dph.sc.gov
CORE IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION PARTNER: University of South Carolina Institute for Families in Society		ANA LÓPEZ – DE FEDE, PhD Co-Principal Investigator Distinguished Research Professor Emerita Email: ADEFEDE@mailbox.sc.edu
		SARAH GAREAU, DrPH, MEd, MCHES Co-Principal Investigator Assistant Professor Email: GAREAU@mailbox.sc.edu

SCMHIC Task Force

Engaging community partners and individuals with living expertise is not just a part of our aims, but a crucial element that we value and consider integral to our approach. With that in mind, the Maternal Health Task Force (MHTF) is comprised of a diverse group members from a wide range of organization across the state, including participation from educational entities and research partners, community organizers and partners, media and information groups, public health organizations, individuals with living expertise, and clinical and provider organizations. The inaugural meeting of the SC MHTF was held on Thursday, August 22, 2024, at the SC Archives and History Building.

The first meeting was collaborative and energizing with a focus on providing background, building partnerships, reviewing data-driven needs, identifying strategies, and planning next steps. Materials from the meetings may be reviewed here.

See the full listing of the state's MHTF Membership by Organization (February 2025) here.

 

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