Tapping tech entrepreneurship and healthcare partnerships to bridge the maternal mortality gap
Lack of access to high-quality prenatal care. Premature birth. Complications ranging from hemorrhages to hypertension and cardiovascular problems. Postpartum medical issues. The risks faced by pregnant women before, during and after birth are many − and often, severe. They begin at conception and for some women, last a year or longer after giving birth.
Despite advancements in prenatal and postnatal care around the world, maternal mortality rates in the U.S – at 22.3 deaths per 100,000 live births according to 2022 data from the National Center for Health Statistics – are far higher than any other high-income country. Additionally, Black women in the U.S. are more than twice as likely to die during pregnancy or after birth than the national average, for reasons ranging from lack of access to quality healthcare services to higher rates of chronic health conditions in their communities.
A new Winrock-led project in Arkansas – which has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the U.S. – aims to close the maternal mortality gap through an innovative partnership. The project unites Winrock − a leader in healthcare business acceleration – with Baptist Health, the state’s largest healthcare system; Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield, the state’s largest insurer; and Washington Regional Health System, Northwest Arkansas’s most extensive health system, to accelerate maternal health innovations in early risk identification and prevention. With funding from both the Arkansas Economic Development Commission and the Walton Family Foundation, the project’s goal is to reduce pregnancy and childbirth complications and solutions in the critical first 12 months after birth.
Launched in late 2024, MaternaTech connects maternal health-focused innovators to healthcare providers to accelerate the development, testing and piloting of solutions and tech to improve prenatal, perinatal and postpartum care.
Arkansas is a challenging proving ground for the project.
State-level data show Arkansas’s maternal mortality rate at approximately 43.5 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021 — far above the national average, according to CDC-reported figures. That’s in part because Arkansan women, especially in rural areas, lack access to high-quality healthcare. Arkansas also has some of the highest national rates of chronic health conditions including diabetes, obesity and hypertension, all of which contribute to risks during and after pregnancy.
The MaternaTech partners are attacking the problem through collaboration and innovation, helping to bridge the gulf between emerging maternal care technologies and their adoption and utilization by clinicians, caregivers, support groups, health systems and front-line workers. Historically, lack of coordination between health tech developers and providers has fragmented response efforts and solutions, contributing to delays and in some cases, preventing the application of new technologies and approaches that could save mothers’ lives.
The timing for the new project couldn’t be better, with a range of recent maternal health initiatives focusing critically needed resources and attention on finding solutions in Arkansas.
In 2024, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed an executive order to support moms, protect babies and improve maternal health and created the Arkansas Strategic Committee for Maternal Health, which set over 100 stakeholders a six-month timeline to achieve these goals. And in February 2025, Sanders announced new legislation, the Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies Act, to improve maternal health in Arkansas. According to an announcement from the governor’s office, its proposed reforms include: presumptive Medicaid eligibility for pregnant women, meaning pregnant women can receive prenatal care while they complete their Medicaid application; reimbursement pathways for doulas and community health workers; and pregnancy-related Medicaid coverage for remote ultrasounds, remote blood pressure monitoring, and continuous glucose monitoring.
“The alarming maternal mortality rate in Arkansas, particularly among Black women, underscores the urgency of this initiative,” said Julie Nix, corporate vice president of women’s health and surgery at Baptist Health.
“MaternaTech’s commitment to identifying, recruiting and supporting startups with promising solutions is vital to reversing this trend. By providing these start-ups with critical access to clinicians, subject matter experts, and strategic pilot development, MaternaTech is fostering an environment where innovative ideas can thrive and make a real impact.”
The project is working with eight enterprises that have developed health technologies or platforms to focus on prenatal care, complication prevention or postpartum care, including:
- Pomelo Care: a hybrid medical practice for maternal and infant care that delivers personalized, data-driven maternal healthcare by combining the use of its proprietary digital platform with other social means of engagement. Pomelo Care differs from similar companies because it is an actual provider, directly employing physicians, certified nurse midwives and doulas to support its clinical model.
- Mahmee: an enterprise that partners with hospitals, health systems and payers to enhance maternal and infant care through a scalable, cost-effective approach that integrates virtual, outpatient and inpatient services. Mahmee’s programs improve prenatal and postpartum clinical outcomes, reduce operational costs and increase patient engagement by delivering holistic, tech-enabled support across the full continuum of care.
- Mae: a company that leverages, scales and delivers a culturally competent doula care network to all who need it and want it. Mae is equally focused on increasing accessibility for birth workers to provide support to those on government-sponsored healthcare, and provides administrative assistance to local and community doulas to help reduce barriers in their communities. Mae utilizes proprietary risk assessment and engagement platforms to connect doulas with those who need them.
- Diana Health: a comprehensive women’s healthcare company that provides personalized care, including maternity, gynecology, menopause, mental health and wellness services. Diana Health delivers services both virtually and in-person with a hybrid model.
- League Pager: a collaboration between Pager Health and League designed to address the maternal health crisis, League’s health engagement and navigation solution provides individualized, data-driven maternity programming and evidence-based care journeys, with support from before conception through prenatal and postpartum phases. Pager Health’s 360 Enterprise Orchestration tool, embedded within the League platform, enables secure chat and multi-point care navigation in a trusted, interconnected experience.
- Connect Healthcare: a maternal health nurse advocacy company that works directly with self-insured employers and brokers to help health plans keep maternal health costs low and predictable. The company specializes in maximizing a health plan’s benefit design by assisting employees and plan participants in connecting with all prenatal and postpartum resources and services available through the benefits plan. Even the well-insured maternal market underutilizes maternal health resources, and CHC helps bridge those care gaps.
- Innovator Health: an Arkansas-based virtual medicine company that delivers high-quality specialty care through its world-class telemedicine platform to rural health centers and community-based hospitals across the U.S. and territories. Innovator Health will provide virtual obstetrics services in targeted areas that lack proper OB coverage.
- Douglas Medical: an Arkansas-based medical device company that is developing “The Douglas Obstetrical Catheter,” an innovative medical device designed to address complications during childbirth caused by traditional Foley catheters. The patented adaptive design uses a non-obstructive, flexible balloon shape that minimally interferes with the birth canal. The device is designed to shift, contract or expand as the baby progresses during birth.
In Arkansas, around 44% of the state is classified as a maternity desert, compared to 32% in the greater U.S.; additionally, another 20% of Arkansas is considered to have low access to maternity care, says MaternaTech project team member Gre’Juana “G” Dennis.
“Over half of the state faces limited or no access to maternity care,” Dennis said. “When you combine these facts with the reality of nationwide OBGYN shortages, access issues arise even in areas with comprehensive maternity care resources. The OBGYNs are all very busy and have little-to-no capacity. As we evaluated all these factors, we overwhelmingly concluded that we needed to use MaternaTech to address maternal care access strategically.
“As we began to engage with companies with our MaternaTech project teams, we discovered that we needed to design our collaboration efforts around the leading indicators or drivers of complication rates, pre-term births, and postpartum support. Initially, we had become a little stifled trying to impact those outcomes directly. The maternal health outcomes we want to impact are, in fact, lagging and thereby take time to change. By focusing on the leading indicators, we have more ability to predict and measure our efforts.”
David Sanders, MaternaTech’s project lead and Winrock’s director of Ecosystem Enterprise, adds: “This is a commitment to meaningful ongoing stakeholder collaboration and inviting promising companies to work from the inside with health systems, physicians and insurance payers. Each company has strategic pilot development in a curated environment to accelerate the design, validation and deployment of new technologies that improve maternal healthcare among the population that needs it the most.”
MaternaTech also aims to drive economic growth in Arkansas by facilitating corporate innovation between partners − creating opportunities for new jobs that promote the deployment of new technology and services in maternal health. It is also anticipated to generate increased demand for skilled professionals in healthcare technology, data analytics, software development and clinical research, enhancing maternal health. Integrating advanced maternal healthcare technologies and practices is expected to both enhance patient care, improve patient outcomes and expand market reach, added Sanders. Innovation and practical application are also expected to drive growth for both tech startups and partnering healthcare providers, enabling the infusion of new ideas, products and services to provide additional access across the state.
MaternaTech’s use of “technology and innovative solutions to improve access, reduce disparities, improve the quality of prenatal care, reduce complications and deploy evidence-based solutions to the healthcare delivery system closely aligns with Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s focus on improving the health of all Arkansas,” said Cal Kellogg, ABCBS’s executive vice president and chief strategy officer.
“For new technology to be developed and deployed broadly and successfully, entrepreneurial, clinical, and healthcare financing, both public and private, must be closely aligned and working toward similar goals.”
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