Idaho Perinatal Quality
Collaborative News
The Maternal and Child Health Program of the Idaho
Department of Health and Welfare and Comagine
Healthhave partnered to establish Idaho’s Perinatal
Quality Collaborative (IDPQC). IDPQC brings together
clinical providers, public health leaders, payers andcommunity-based organizations to improve outcomes for
pregnant people and babies.

July 2024
Article: Addressing Social Determinants ofHealth for Pregnant and Postpartum Medicaid
Beneficiaries
Social determinants of health (SDOH) are conditions in the environment that impact a wide
range of health and quality-of-life outcomes. These conditions are where a person is born,lives, learns, works, plays and ages. There are complex structures that influence a
person’s access and environment and impact the health and well-being of pregnant andpostpartum people.

As part of longstanding efforts to reduce health disparities and advance maternal and infant
health, states are increasingly developing holistic approaches to address the health andsocial needs of pregnant and postpartum people. Read this article by the National

Academy for State Health Policy that includes statements by the White House and othergovernment agencies on how they plan to address the health and social needs of pregnant
and postpartum people.

Article: Implementing Levels of Maternal Care
Improves Access to Risk-Appropriate Care
Risk-appropriate care is a strategy to ensure that pregnant women and infants with highrisk of complications receive care at facilities with personnel who offer services at therequired level of specialized care. Learn more about CDC’s Levels of Care Assessment
Tools, how to implement levels of maternal care, and increasing state participation in thisarticle.

Article: Policy Center for Maternal Mental HealthState Report Card - Idaho
The Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health has released state cards. They gave thenation a grade of D+ with only four states exceeding a C+ (CA, PA, UT and WA) with 29 Dsand Fs. See Idaho’s state report card here: State Report Cards - Policy Center forMaternal Mental Health.

Article: Wrap-Around
Mental Health Services
Needed for Mothers,
Birthing People andFamilies

Perinatal mental illness is a significant complication of pregnancy and the postpartum
period that includes a variety of disorders such as depression, anxiety disorders, andpostpartum psychosis, which usually manifests as bipolar disorder. Perinatal depression isthe most common and underdiagnosed obstetric complication in the U.S.

Perinatal depression affects 15% to 20% of new mothers – almost double that number formothers living at low income, and triple that for low-income adolescent mothers. Meera
Menon, PhD, outlines the recommendations from the U.S. Preventative Services Task
Force on how policymakers can reduce stigma and improve systems. Learn more here:
Wrap-Around Mental Health Services Needed for Mothers, Birthing People, andFamilies.

Resource: Task Force on Maternal Mental Health
Learn more about the task force that evaluates federal maternal mental health careprograms and identifies practices for implementation across the country.

Read more on the Task Force on Maternal Mental Health webpage.

White Paper: Considerations for theImplementation of Point of Care Tests forSyphilis
An HHS Task Force released the white paper Considerations for the Implementation ofPoint of Care Tests for Syphilis as a resource for providers who test patients for syphilis.
This resource outlines four main differences between syphilis point of care tests andlaboratory-based serologic syphilis tests and highlights the best settings to consider use ofpoint-of-care tests.

Follow Us
Follow the IDPQC Activity Summary Basecamp Page to learn more about the development
process of the PQC here. For more information about the IDPQC, visit idahopqc.org.

This project was supported by CFDA 93.994 from the Health Resources and Services
Administration. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do notnecessarily represent the official views of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare or
the Health Resources and Services Administration.

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