B’more for Healthy Babies Maternal and Infant Health Improvement and Sustainability Initiative
Aurrera Health worked with the Baltimore City Health Department (BCHD) and Baltimore’s Promise to identify opportunities under Medicaid to sustain and improve a city-wide comprehensive maternal and infant health initiative to reduce infant mortality, reduce pre-term births, and decrease related health disparities. The B’More for Healthy Babies (BHB) initiative provides medical and social service referrals, home visits, and care coordination for at-risk low-income pregnant women, new mothers, and their children.
Building on years of experience analyzing and promoting maternal and children’s health policies and programs, the Aurrera Health Group team provided policy analysis, stakeholder engagement, and strategic advice on the project, including interviewing stakeholders, identifying policy vehicles for connecting the services provided under BHB to federal Medicaid funding, providing Medicaid policy and strategic advice, drafting the application for the Maryland Evidence-Based Home Visiting Pilot program on behalf of BCHD, preparing presentations for the BHB Steering Committee and Board meetings, serving as a liaison between the Baltimore City Health Department and the Maryland Medicaid agency; and developing recommendations for sustaining and improving the initiative and assisting BCHD in operationalizing the policy changes.
As a result of Aurrera Health Group’s recommendations, the Maryland Department of Health received federal approval to create a pilot program to provide Medicaid funding for home visiting services for pregnant women, new mothers, and their infants under the state’s Medicaid section 1115 waiver. The Aurrera Health team worked with BCHD to plan and implement the Home Visiting Pilot and to help BCHD implement policy and operational changes designed to sustain the BHB initiative in the long-term.
Project Team
