HHS Office on Women’s Health Announces Final Phase Winners for HHS Hypertension Innovator Award Competition

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office on Women’s Health has announced the final phase winners for the HHS Hypertension Innovator Award Competition. The national competition was created to identify and reward innovative programs that ensure women with hypertension during pregnancy and/or postpartum receive appropriate monitoring and follow-up. This competition supports the Biden-Harris Administration’s implementation of the White House Blueprint for Addressing the Maternal Health Crisis, a whole-of-government strategy to combat maternal mortality and improve maternal and infant health, focusing on underserved communities.

“By recognizing innovative programs addressing hypertension during pregnancy and maternal health disparities across the nation, we reaffirm our commitment to ensuring nationwide maternal health excellence and equity,” said Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Rachel Levine. “Community-tailored solutions increasing access to and coverage of comprehensive maternal health care are critical in achieving health equity.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), heart disease is the leading cause of death for women in the United States. Hypertension affects one in every twelve to seventeen pregnancies in the United States. Racial and ethnic disparities involving hypertensive disorders in pregnancy affect more than 1 in 5 delivery hospitalizations of Black women and about 1 in 6 delivery hospitalizations of American Indian and Alaska Native women. Factors that contribute to these disparities include lack of access to and quality of health care, racial bias in the health care system, and psychosocial stress from experiencing racism. In addition, women from all ethnicities and backgrounds also face barriers to managing blood pressure, including cost, transportation, schedules, locality (living in rural or underserved areas), and lack of education about the importance of good blood pressure control.

“Managing hypertension before, during, and after pregnancy is paramount for the well-being of both mother and baby,” said Dorothy Fink, M.D., Deputy Assistant Secretary for Women’s Health and Director of the Office on Women’s Health. “By empowering health care providers and mothers, we contribute to healthier pregnancies and improved maternal and infant outcomes.”

The third and final phase of the competition rewards programs that successfully replicated and/or expanded. The following phase 3 winners have each received a prize of up to $100,000:

1. Boston Medical Center: The Remote Cloud Connected Postpartum Blood Pressure Monitoring Program at Boston Medical Center utilizes a cloud-based platform to identify high-risk women post-delivery, providing them with cell-enabled blood pressure cuffs for six weeks. This approach significantly reduced readmission risks for patients with severe hypertension at discharge. In Phase 3, the program expanded to include pregnant patients at high risk of preeclampsia, enrolling 193 pregnant patients, 81% of whom were non-Hispanic Black or Hispanic, demonstrating a commitment to inclusive and preventative care.
2. Brigham and Women’s Hospital: Improving Outcomes by Empowering Women After Hypertensive Pregnancy focuses on transitioning from obstetric to primary care in the postpartum period with a virtual format that engages a racially, culturally, and socioeconomically diverse patient population. Implementing this program led to a substantial increase in blood pressure monitoring and control among postpartum patients. In Phase 3, this program has supported 14 other health systems in replicating and implementing their clinical model across several communities nationwide.
3. CommonSpirit Health: The Maternal Hypertension Initiative (MHI) quality improvement program addresses hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and increases monitoring in both the intrapartum and the postpartum periods.  It consists of a bundle of three evidence-based interventions in response to critical, sustained elevated blood pressure that led to a reduction in the rolling 4-month rate of eclampsia and non-hemorrhage-related severe maternal morbidity in their patient population. As part of their efforts to extend the use of this package, this program has expanded to over 75 emergency departments across 18 states in other CommonSpirit Health facilities.
4. Emagine Solutions Technology: The Journey Pregnancy’s suite of technologies, comprising the patient app (The Journey Pregnancy), provider software (The Journey Clinic), and handheld ultrasound (VistaScan), aims to enhance maternal health outcomes by offering data-driven solutions for pregnancy and postpartum care. Users reported feeling safer and more health-aware during pregnancy due to the streamlined monitoring with providers through these platforms. This program’s integration with electronic health record systems and wearable fitness devices has expanded its reach, resulting in an impressive 860% increase in the user base since the conclusion of Phase 2 of this challenge.
5. Lehigh Valley Health Network: Continuous Ambulatory Remote Engagement Services (CARES) began as a remote monitoring program for patients with congestive heart failure and was extended to address postpartum preeclampsia at two of their largest sites in April 2020, which caused blood pressure monitoring among their postpartum patients to increase significantly. In Phase 3, this program expanded its efforts to three additional delivery hospitals in the Lehigh Valley Health Network system located in rural areas to address the disparities in accessing care among this segment of their patient population.
6. New York City Health + Hospitals: Hypertension Treat to Target Program (T2T) launched in 2018 to link women with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy to primary care for postpartum hypertension management. This linkage led to substantial increases in the percentage of women who successfully engaged in care and achieved blood pressure control. This program successfully expanded to two additional hospitals within the same health system and plans to expand to the remaining seven locations.
7. Ochsner Health: Connected Maternity Online Monitoring (MOM) evaluated the effectiveness of their digital medicine program in increasing blood pressure monitoring during pregnancy and the postpartum period, specifically for Black patients and those in the rural population. This program saw a statistically significant increase in blood pressure measurements during pregnancy and the postpartum period among their patients, and the Connected MOM platform has been replicated and adopted by more than 100 providers in Louisiana and reached a total of over 2,000 patients last year.
8. Preeclampsia Foundation: The Cuff Kit program was launched in 2020 to enable self-monitoring of blood pressure for women at the highest risk of developing a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy with fewer resources to procure their blood pressure monitors, which resulted in daily blood pressure readings being recorded by a majority of their patients. The Cuff Kit enables providers to respond to indications of gestational and postpartum hypertension more rapidly.  To date, the program has distributed over 26,877 kits, working with 206 sites in 27 states, which means more than 6,000 additional kits have been given to pregnant and postpartum women since the end of Phase 2 of this challenge.
9. University of Chicago: The Systematic Treatment and Management of Postpartum Hypertension (STAMPP-HTN) brings together a series of evidence-based interventions, including home blood pressure monitoring and telehealth visits, to improve and standardize the clinical care of women with postpartum hypertension. This program led to a substantially improved rate of postpartum follow-up visits and eliminated racial disparities in their patient population. As part of their efforts to expand their reach, this program engaged community health workers to contact and partner with patients in home blood pressure monitoring, which led to pronounced improvements in postpartum telehealth visits. In addition, this program has been replicated in seven other institutions in multiple states across the country.
10. University of Pennsylvania: Heart Safe Motherhood uses text messaging to monitor postpartum hypertension, providing automated reminders to send readings to providers and real-time patient feedback based on reported blood pressures. This novel approach significantly increased blood pressure monitoring and reduced hypertension-related admissions among participants. In addition to expanding to all five Penn Medicine birthing hospitals and two other birthing hospitals in Philadelphia, this program is working to assist fourteen other locations in various regions across the United States.
11. University of Wisconsin: Staying Healthy After Childbirth is a remote monitoring program that provides a Bluetooth-enabled home blood pressure device to postpartum patients, which increases blood pressure monitoring in the ten days following discharge. In response to gaps in care identified through their previous work, this program has initiated a randomized control trial that aims to expand the success of their current practices by improving blood pressure control and monitoring through 12 months postpartum as well as increasing the adoption of positive lifestyle behaviors related to hypertension and cardiovascular disease among their postpartum patients.