Latest news with #BrianIriye
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
‘Maternity desert': Program targets missing care for pregnancies in Pahrump
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Statistics tell the risks for pregnant women in Nye County — a 'maternity care desert' with limited access to care. In 2023, Pahrump recorded 344 live births with a preterm birth rate of 13.4% (national average: 10.4%), scoring an F on the March of Dimes Preterm Birth report card. The infant mortality rate is 8.22%, compared to the national average of 5.8%. Maternal and prenatal care can become a life-and-death situation. In 2022, a 24-year-old Pahrump woman died of complications from septic abortion after traveling to the Las Vegas valley for care. Now the medical community is stepping up, initiating a Medical Maternity Home Program to meet growing needs in Pahrump, a community of 49,000 people and home to 8,000 women of reproductive age (15 to 50 years old). The effort is a collaboration involving SilverSummit Healthplan, Nevada Health Centers, High Risk Pregnancy Center and Hera Women's Health. Funding for the program comes from the Centene Foundation, which will allocate $1 million over three years. An additional $100,000 will be provided by SilverSummit Healthplan, according to a news release. It's an important step that takes resources available in Las Vegas to set up coordinated patient care and outreach in Pahrump. Services will include maternal-fetal medicine, obstetrician-gynecologists, advanced practitioners, behavioral health providers and community health workers to reach affected pregnant women in Nye County. In addition telehealth services and services for women, infants and children are part of the program. Officials announced the program last week and said it is expected to start seeing patients in late 2025. 'Nye County is a maternity care desert, meaning that there are an insufficient number of maternity care providers,' Dr. Steven Evans, chief medical officer for SilverSummit Healthplan, said in a news release. 'This scarcity in maternity providers results in pregnant women needing to travel long distances to receive prenatal and postpartum care, which contributes to poor birth outcomes such as pre-term birth and low birth weight.' Dr. Brian Iriye, president of Hera Women's Health, spoke with 8 News Now about the program. 'Our goal with the Medical Maternity Home Program is to bring together a multidisciplinary team of specialists to ensure every mother and baby in rural Nevada has access to the high-quality care they deserve,' Iriye said. 'By fostering partnerships and utilizing innovative solutions, we aim to overcome the challenges faced by underserved communities and improve maternal and neonatal outcomes across the region.' He said the distance is just part of understanding the problem. 'Maybe for a lot of people it doesn't seem like much of a challenge. But I think there's a lot of people struggling out there with transportation, financial security, food security. And Pahrump does seem to have a little more of that possibly,' he said. The program is all about improving access to care. 'Access ends up solving a lot of the problems,' he said. A 60-minute drive when you're in labor is a big deal, Iriye said. 'What if somebody's in pre-term labor? That 60-minute drive probably seems like two to three hours,' he said. 'Whenever you can get care to somebody, it needs to be several things, right? It needs to be right care, right place, right time. It's so important that we get that done,' Iriye said. 'So overall, fantastic program I think we're getting done. But I think more importantly, fantastic program for the area,' Iriye said on Friday. The program was announced on Thursday, National Maternal Health Awareness Day. The Medical Maternity Health Program will: Provide prenatal care and monitor pre-term birth rates. Implement protocols to enhance quality and ensure proper maternal-fetal medicine referrals by following national guidelines and protocols. It will also use SilverSummit Healthplan's Project Guardian, which tackles the provider shortage by enabling remote health monitoring statewide. Provide on-site consistent maternal care and obstetrical services at least two days a month. Provide maternal-fetal medicine consultation (in-person and or via telemedicine), high level fetal ultrasound, behavioral health (telemedicine), and treatment for opioid use disorder (telemedicine). Provide professional education (obstetrical emergencies) to family practice physicians and clinical support staff. Iriye said officials are looking at other parts of the state that would benefit from services if the pilot program succeeds. He said Elko, Winnemucca and areas around Lake Tahoe could be candidates. And beyond that, there are regional needs much closer to Las Vegas in fast-growing communities of northwest Arizona. Mobile services could provide an answer for some communities. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Associated Press
27-01-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Sera Prognostics to Host Virtual R&D Day on January 31
Event will showcase results of Company's pivotal PRIME study and include the principal investigator SALT LAKE CITY, Jan. 27, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Sera Prognostics Inc., The Pregnancy Company® (NASDAQ: SERA), focused on improving maternal and neonatal health by providing innovative pregnancy biomarker information to doctors and patients, today announced that it plans to host a virtual R&D day on January 31, 2025, from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. ET/2:00 to 3:00 p.m. PT. This date was changed from the prior planned date of the event due to scheduling conflicts. During the event, Sera's management team, and principal investigator for the Company's pivotal PRIME study, Dr. Brian Iriye, maternal-fetal medicine expert at the High-Risk Pregnancy Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, will present results of the Prematurity Risk Assessment Combined With Clinical Interventions for Improving Neonatal outcoMEs ('PRIME') study and answer questions regarding this pivotal research. Conference Call Information Sera Prognostics will host a corresponding conference call and live webcast of the R&D day on January 31 from 5:00-6:00 p.m. ET/2:00-3:00 p.m. PT. Individuals interested in listening to the conference call may do so by dialing the following: US domestic callers: (800) 836-8184 International callers: (646) 357-8785 Webcast Registration Link: Live audio of the webcast will be available online from the Investors page of the Company's website The webcast will be archived on the Investors page and will be available for one year. About Sera Prognostics, Inc. Sera Prognostics is a leading health diagnostics company dedicated to improving the lives of women and babies through precision pregnancy care. Sera's mission is to provide early, pivotal pregnancy information to improve the health of mothers and newborns, resulting in reductions in the costs of healthcare delivery. Sera has a robust pipeline of innovative diagnostic tests focused on the early prediction of preterm birth risk and other complications of pregnancy. Sera's precision medicine PreTRM® Test reports to a physician the individualized risk of spontaneous premature delivery in a pregnancy, enabling earlier proactive interventions in women with higher risk. Sera Prognostics is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. About Preterm Birth Preterm birth is defined as any birth before 37 weeks' gestation and is the leading cause of illness and death in newborns. The 2023 March of Dimes Report Card shows that, for the last five consecutive years, more than one in ten infants is born prematurely in the United States. Prematurity is associated with a significantly increased risk of major long-term medical complications, including learning disabilities, cerebral palsy, chronic respiratory illness, intellectual disability, seizures, and vision and hearing loss, and can generate significant costs throughout the lives of affected children. The annual health care costs to manage short- and long-term complications of prematurity in the United States were estimated to be approximately $25 billion for 2016. About the PreTRM® Test The PreTRM® Test is the only broadly validated, commercially available blood-based biomarker test that provides an early, accurate and individualized risk prediction for spontaneous preterm birth in asymptomatic singleton pregnancies. The PreTRM® Test measures and analyzes proteins in the blood that are highly predictive of preterm birth. The PreTRM® Test permits physicians to identify, during the weeks 18 through 20 of pregnancy, which women are at increased risk for preterm birth and its complications, enabling more informed, personalized clinical decisions based on each woman's individual risk. The PreTRM® Test is ordered by a medical professional. Sera Prognostics, the Sera Prognostics logo, The Pregnancy Company, and PreTRM are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sera Prognostics, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Safe Harbor Statement This press release contains 'forward-looking statements' within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements relating to the date, time, content and webcast replay availability of the Company's R&D day; and the company's strategic directives under the caption 'About Sera Prognostics, Inc.' These 'forward-looking statements' are based on management's current expectations of future events and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially and adversely from those set forth in or implied by forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: net losses, cash generation, and the potential need to raise more capital; revenues from the PreTRM Test representing substantially all Company revenues to date; the need for broad scientific and market acceptance of the PreTRM Test; a concentrated number of material customers; our ability to introduce new products; potential competition; our proprietary biobank; critical suppliers; the COVID-19 pandemic and its potential lingering impact on our operations, as well as the business or operations of third parties with whom we conduct business; estimates of total addressable market opportunity and forecasts of market growth; potential third-party payer coverage and reimbursement; new reimbursement methodologies applicable to the PreTRM Test, including new CPT codes and payment rates for those codes; changes in FDA regulation of laboratory-developed tests; the intellectual property rights protecting our tests and market position; and other factors discussed under the heading 'Risk Factors' contained in our Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as any updates to those risk factors filed from time to time in our periodic and current reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All information in this press release is as of the date of the release, and the Company undertakes no duty to update this information unless required by law.
