Rita And Alex Hillman Foundation Awards Innovation Dissemination Grant to TeamBirth

Affirming its commitment to scaling evidence-based, nursing-driven interventions that provide equitable, person-centered, and trustworthy care, The Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation today announced a $200,000 Hillman Innovation Dissemination (HID) grant to TeamBirth.

“At a time when one in five pregnant people experience mistreatment during childbirth, and up to 40 percent of Black and multiracial patients report discrimination while receiving maternity care, it is imperative that interventions like TeamBirth are made widely available,” says Ahrin Mishan, Executive Director of The Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation. “We are proud to support the expansion of this important intervention.”

Developed by Ariadne Labs – a joint center for health systems innovation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health – TeamBirth is a care process innovation that ensures people giving birth and the clinicians who are caring for them have shared input and understanding into decisions during labor and delivery. Using such easy-to-implement components as team huddles and a patient-facing whiteboard, patients and clinicians alike have credited TeamBirth with making the labor and delivery process more person-centered and, most importantly, safer.

After an initial feasibility trial at four sites in 2018, TeamBirth is on track to be integrated into more than 100 U.S. hospitals by the end of this year. Building on this momentum and a growing evidence base, HID funds will enable Ariadne Labs to pursue innovative strategies for maximizing the reach and impact of TeamBirth.

“Funding from The Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation comes at a critical time,” says Amber Weiseth, DNP, MSN, RN, Director of the Ariadne Labs’ Delivery Decisions Initiative and the principal investigator of the HID grant. “This partnership and support will be vital in ensuring that more parents-to-be have access to dignified, equitable, and safe birthing experiences.”

The Hillman Innovation Dissemination program, established in 2017, amplifies the scaling efforts of successful interventions with proven outcomes that target the needs of marginalized populations. See a roster of previous HID grant recipients here.