EnCoRe MoMS: Engaging Communities to Reduce Morbidity From Maternal Sepsis (Aim 1)

Maternal sepsis is the second leading cause of maternal death, major cause of morbidity, and preventable in most cases. Labor, birth, and postpartum are periods of increased sepsis risk. While American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) recommend the implementation of safety bundles to prevent maternal mortality as the standard of care, there is limited evidence regarding effectiveness. EnCoRe MoMS will directly evaluate safety bundle performance for maternal sepsis. With extensive community partnerships and community organized leadership advisory board (CoLAB), EnCoRe MoMS: Engaging Communities to Reduce Morbidity from Maternal Sepsis will develop, implement, and evaluate a community-informed maternal sepsis bundle in 4 New York City (NYC) hospitals.

In Aim 1a: a robust community engagement and research infrastructures were established to design a comprehensive obstetric sepsis bundle that i) applies and optimizes standard evidence-based components of readiness, recognition, response, reporting, and respectful care ii) incorporates multidisciplinary obstetric provider training, and iii) integrates screening for unmet needs.

In Aim 1b, the investigators will assess participant outcomes pre- and post-maternal sepsis bundle implementation. Participants will be followed through their hospitalization until delivery hospitalization discharge or development of sepsis and readmissions pertinent to the study will be assessed. For the pre-implementation cohort, the investigators will use electronic health record (EHR) data from delivery hospitalizations to women from 2020-2022 from the four partner NYC hospitals compared to deliveries post-implementation (2025)during award period.

In the UH3 phase, the investigators will engage the community to implement the maternal sepsis care model, analyze results, and translate findings. Aim 1b. Implement the comprehensive obstetric sepsis bundle and evaluate its effectiveness using process and outcome measures Aim 1c. Define patterns in EHR of provider response to suspected sepsis, pre- vs post-bundle implementation; analyze associations between provider response variation and outcomes.