By TESS VRBIN | Arkansas Advocate
The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences received a $4 million federal grant to support obstetric care for pregnant people in two rural South Arkansas counties.
Helping Expand Access to Rural maternal health care Transformation for Moms (HEART Moms) will bring “comprehensive, team-based care closer to home” in Ashley and Union counties, Dr. Nirvana Manning, the grant recipient and chair of the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, said in a Monday news release.
The goal of the program is to create “a sustainable, regionally coordinated maternal health network with robust governance, a referral infrastructure and Medicaid-aligned payment strategies,” the news release states.
Another goal of the program is to reduce maternal mortality, measured by the rate at which women die during childbirth or within a year of giving birth. Arkansas has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the nation and the third-highest infant mortality rate, according to the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement.
HEART Moms will utilize “a combination of mobile health, digital health and workforce development strategies that we hope can be replicated in other rural areas across Arkansas,” Manning said.
According to the news release, the initiative will start in 2026 and include:
- Employing widespread screenings for conditions that increase health risks during pregnancy, such as hypertension and diabetes, and ensuring in-person or virtual follow-up care
- Establishing group prenatal care services in the two counties “to enhance prenatal education, peer support and health outcomes”
- Training community health workers and mental health specialists on culturally responsive patient outreach, assessments of non-medical determinants of health and assisting patients in choosing and understanding insurance benefits
- Improving online access to mental health treatment and local obstetric emergency preparedness
The grant comes from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The agency awards HEART Moms funding to areas with “urgent gaps in access to obstetric care and perinatal behavioral health” caused by a shortage of health care providers, hospitals closing their labor and delivery units or closing entirely, and long travel distances between providers, among other things, according to the news release.
The Ashley County Medical Center in Crossett is among six Arkansas hospitals that have closed their labor and delivery units since 2020. The hospitals in Bradley and Columbia counties have also ended obstetric services since then. Both counties border Union County, where the South Arkansas Regional Hospital in El Dorado has a labor and delivery unit.
The hospital in Ouachita County, which also borders Union County, is considering scaling back its labor and delivery services in exchange for increased federal funding that will help its doors remain open.
Thirty-one other hospitals in 20 more of Arkansas’ 75 counties have labor and delivery units.
In February, the Arkansas Legislature directed $2.5 million in state funds to the Crossett and El Dorado hospitals so UAMS can train physicians in 22 residency slots, including an obstetrics fellowship. The HEART Moms program will install a second obstetrics fellow in the region.
The program will also employ mobile maternal health clinics that rotate between Ashley and Union counties to reduce patients’ transportation-related barriers to care. A federally-funded mobile maternal health clinic program serves 11 Southwest Arkansas counties, including Columbia and Ouachita, but the program does not stretch all the way across South Arkansas, and its future after 2026 is uncertain.
Earlier this year, UAMS launched the Arkansas Center for Women and Infants’ Health with Manning as director. The center works with providers to increase pregnant and postpartum Arkansans’ access to care, especially in rural and underserved communities.
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