28-01-2025
‘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.
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