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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Marcy J. Burka-Charles, MSc and Jeanne Repp, RN, MN. Southern Alberta Child and Youth Health Network, Calgary Health Region, 19th Street South, Room 4K105, Lethbridge, AB T1J 1W5, Canada, (403) 388-6264, marcy.burka-charles@calgaryhealthregion.ca

Primary health care reform in Alberta involves changing the organization, funding, and delivery of primary health care services. The Southern Alberta Child and Youth Health Network (SACYHN) is working to achieve this end through the Healthy Infants Initiative.

Objective: To expand knowledge and increase evidence-based decision making of primary care providers in the screening, intervention, and referral of women for maternal risk factors and to build partner's capacity to sustain initiative activities.

Methods: Our presentation will describe an extensive partnership with four health regions, a First Nations health organization, provincial and professional health associations, and physicians to address preterm birth, low birth weight, and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder in Southern Alberta. Population health and primary health care concepts were married to build and pilot a self-administered maternal health prenatal screening tool (“Healthy Mother, Healthy Baby Questionnaire”: HMHB-Q), its user guide, and a referral tracking system. Capacity building strategies used to build upon and sustain this initiative will be presented, as well as qualitative and quantitative results of a two-phase pilot project.

Significance: This initiative showcases an interdisciplinary, population health approach that encourages family physicians/obstetricians, nurses, and other health professions to work together to improve birth outcomes. Anticipated outcomes include patient and provider satisfaction, a paradigm shift in preventive practice, and evaluation findings that inform public health programming and the development of an electronic prenatal record.

Word Count: 222

Learning Objectives:

• To discuss the outcomes and recommendations of of a three year multi-jurisdictional primary health care initiative in Southern Alberta, Canada;
• To articulate the process used to build and pilot a self-adminstered maternal health prenatal screening tool based upon population health and primary health care principles; and
• To articulate the evaluation methodology used to assess the acceptability of the screening tool and the process for completing it by pregnant women and their family physicians, as well as the clinical utility of the screening tool by family physicians and their office staff with respect to providing interventions and/or referrals to public health programming.

Keywords: Surveillance, Maternal and Child Health

Related Web page: www.sacyhn.ca

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation