👨‍👧Maternity Caregiving

Enhancing Care Collaboration and Patient-Centered Maternity Support

The Ability Hub app is a transformative tool designed to address critical challenges in maternity care by fostering collaboration, mitigating care fragmentation, and empowering both healthcare teams and patients.

Care Collaboration: Bridging Gaps in Maternity Care

Streamlining Communication Across Stakeholders Pregnancy is typically identified at around 13 weeks gestational age (GA), with 25% of patients identifying as early as GA 7. The Ability Hub app facilitates seamless communication between clinicians and payers, ensuring that patients receive timely benefits and actionable advice. By integrating diverse care team members, the app activates comprehensive, patient-centric care pathways.

Addressing Fragmentation with a Risk Identification Model The app combats care fragmentation by enabling providers to identify, document, and share risks with the appropriate team members. This wraparound approach ensures that no critical information is lost, enhancing the quality of care delivered throughout the pregnancy journey.

A Unified Approach to Maternal Health

Empowering Providers to Address Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) Healthcare providers often have the most touchpoints with patients during clinical appointments. The Ability Hub app equips them to connect patients with external resources to address social or behavioral risk factors that significantly impact maternal health outcomes but are often overlooked in traditional models.

Breaking Down Silos in Traditional Care Models Under conventional OB-GYN care, patients interact with multiple stakeholders (e.g., obstetricians, midwives, social workers) without integrated data sharing. This disjointed approach places the burden of communication on the patient. The Ability Hub app eliminates these silos by creating a unified platform for collaboration, ensuring risks are addressed promptly and effectively.

Key Challenges in Traditional Maternity Care

1. Narrow Focus on Clinical Variables

   • Clinical factors account for only 20% of health outcome variations, while SDOH contributes up to 50%. Despite high healthcare spending, the U.S. struggles to address these broader determinants effectively.

2. Fragmentation Across Sectors

   • Primary care, specialty care, mental health, and public health operate independently, leading to redundancies and inefficiencies. Adding payers and regulators further complicates coordination.

3. Discontinuity of Care

   • Patients often see multiple providers (OBs, midwives, lactation consultants, mental health specialists) across different systems during pregnancy and postpartum. This increases the risk of miscommunication and lost information during transitions.

For Patients: A Comprehensive Maternity Care Gateway

The Ability Hub app serves as a mobile gateway for patients, offering tools to enhance their maternity experience:

• Educational Resources: Clinical-grade content tailored to prenatal and postpartum needs.

• Health Tracking Tools: Manual blood pressure (BP) and weight tracking.

• Care Pathways & Checklists: Streamlined assessments and pathways for better care planning.

• Bilingual Accessibility: Content available in multiple languages for inclusivity.

• Mental Health Support: Standardized prenatal and postpartum mental health assessments (e.g., PHQ2/9, EPDS).

• Automated Reminders: SMS notifications to improve screening completion rates.

• Patient Outreach: Enhanced communication channels for proactive engagement.

For Caregivers: Tools for Risk Mitigation and Engagement

Healthcare teams benefit from the Ability Hub app’s advanced features designed to improve maternal care delivery:

• Asynchronous Digital Touchpoints: Facilitate remote interactions with patients.

• Risk Identification & Reporting: Self-reported risk data triggers appropriate interventions.

• Automation & Customization: Automated workflows activate team members based on patient responses.

• Perinatal Mental Health Monitoring: Data reports track progress at both individual and population levels.

• Virtual Tools for Engagement: Resources like reminders and tracking tools improve patient participation in their care journey.

Revolutionizing Maternity Care Through Technology

The Ability Hub app addresses persistent challenges in maternity care by leveraging technology for better outcomes:

1. Improved Access to Resources

   • Digital platforms enable timely communication between patients and providers while connecting them to essential social support systems.

2. Continuity of Care Across Providers

   • By integrating multidisciplinary teams through telemedicine tools like video conferencing and shared digital records, the app ensures consistent care throughout pregnancy.

3. Personalized Care Plans

   • Tailored interventions based on individual needs enhance maternal health outcomes by addressing both clinical and non-clinical factors.

4. Focus on Equity

   • The app bridges gaps in underserved areas by providing accessible tools for marginalized communities or those in rural settings.

The Ability Hub app exemplifies how innovative technology can transform maternity care by fostering collaboration, addressing social determinants of health, and ensuring continuity across diverse healthcare teams. By placing both patients and caregivers at the center of its design, it sets a new standard for comprehensive maternal healthcare delivery.