During ACHIEVE’s Implementation Phase in Alamance County, we received feedback that staff wanted improved communication with Emergency Medical Services (EMS) partners who may be transporting their patients with severe hypertension to the hospital.
In response to this feedback, ACHIEVE nurse coordinator, Shelby Smith-Janey, (RN) and co-investigators, Narges Farahi (MD) and Kimberly Harper (MSN, RN, MHA) arranged a meeting with the Alamance EMS Medical Director and key staff to discuss and promote mutual awareness of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, such as pre-eclampsia and eclampsia.
The Perinatal Nurse Champion (PNC) project housed in the Collaborative for Maternal and Infant Health (CMIH) is funded to develop and train EMS teams within Perinatal Region IV on Obstetrical Emergencies. Liz Soto, the Perinatal Nurse Champion, met with the ACHIEVE team to identify opportunities for synergy and collaboration.
The PNC and ACHIEVE teams worked jointly to deliver the Obstetrical Emergencies training for the Alamance County EMS. Content included in the training included normal delivery, newborn care, postpartum hemorrhage, hypertension disease in pregnancy and management of eclampsia, and mal-presentations (when the baby is not oriented in head-first position during labor).
During the ACHIEVE staff co-facilitated sessions, there was an opportunity to relay feedback received from our patient action groups (PAGs) and Coalition to improve pregnancy outcomes using patient-centered care.
CMIH and ACHIEVE have received overwhelmingly positive responses from EMS staff regarding the skills-based learning they received, and there have been proposed EMS protocol changes that factor in the evidence-based practices that we have been implementing in clinics.
We are excited to see such amazing work accomplished by the Alamance EMS team and CMIH, and we look forward to being part of the conversation as this training is utilized in other counties in North Carolina.