Improving Care for Women Who Experience a First Trimester Loss: Physical and Mental Healthcare and Support Services for Miscarriage Patients.

It is estimated that 25-30 percent of known pregnancies result in early pregnancy loss, which can contribute to significant mental health issues for women. In a local health system, it was identified that there was no standard of care for mental health resources offered to patients experiencing a first trimester miscarriage. To create a model of care and a set of resources that the health system could offer, miscarriage patients nationwide were surveyed about resources and care they received or did not receive, and how that contributed to their satisfaction. This was accomplished with an online, anonymous survey distributed via social media. The survey had 687 responses, with 646 confirming a first trimester miscarriage. Only 13.0 percent (95 percent CI 0.10,0.16) of patients surveyed were offered mental health resources, while a majority desired to receive them. Additionally, only 28.4 percent (0.25,0.32) of patients had a provider well-check, something 84.4 percent (0.81,0.88) of women wanted. Overall, patients reported a mean satisfaction with their care and resources of 5.1 out of 10 (4.89,5.35) and 4.1 out of 10 (3.86,4.32) respectively. Using this data, the goal is to create a standard protocol that health systems can easily implement to improve miscarriage patient satisfaction.

Mothers in Medicine: Breastfeeding and the Healthcare Professional.

Breastfeeding mothers in the healthcare field face significant and unique challenges. This paper seeks to highlight many of these challenges and illustrate examples of systemic changes that can improve breastfeeding success. This is important, because there are many benefits of breastfeeding. From individual and system-wide cost savings to health benefits for mom, baby, and society, increased breastfeeding success within their workforce is a goal that healthcare systems should pursue.

Healthcare in the Age of COVID-19: A Midwestern Catholic Health System's Innovative and Technology-Forward Approach to Life-Saving Care.

After the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 was declared a pandemic in mid-March, it challenged healthcare systems to provide care while mitigating the risk to both patients and staff. The high transmissibility of the virus combined with PPE shortages made this an even more difficult task. A Catholic health system in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, embraced healthcare technology in order to bridge the gap between providing patient care, exposure to the virus, and lack of PPE. To treat COVID-19 patients, they developed a COVID clinic that provides triage, testing, and a hospital-at-home service. The service uses Health Recovery Solution devices to monitor more symptomatic or high-risk patients and provide real-time health data to physicians at a remote site, keeping stable COVID patients out of the hospital while still providing quality care. They also embraced telemedicine across all primary care and subspecialties, increasing the use of the AveraNow platform from less than 50 virtual visits per day to more than 1,000 per day. In long term care, the organization implemented multiple forms of healthcare technology, including TYTO Care devices, the Polycom RealPresence device, and doxy.me services to continue to provide care to these extremely high-risk patients. In the arguably most at-risk environment, the emergency department, the health system was able to use their eCARE emergency video call system to reduce the amount of staff exposed to COVID patients and allow physicians to minimize their exposure while still being able to communicate with patients and perform necessary procedures. Hopefully health systems that have yet to embrace telemedicine or other forms of healthcare technology can use this organization's model to implement changes, especially in the face of uncertainty regarding whether coronavirus will peak again, and whether that peak will be even higher than the surge already seen throughout the U.S.