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Are You a Community-Based Disruptor?

By July 18, 2017 No Comments

Maternity Neighborhood can help you make a difference in your community. Tell us about your program and we can help design and implement a sustainable platform for you and your team to make it easier to reach more women with more services and support.

 

What do you do to help women and babies have better birth experiences? Are you a doula who attends births for women in your community? Are you a midwife or a physician, helping babies out? Do you run/support/work for a program that supports mothers/babies in your community? If you answer yes to any of these, how do you know that what you are doing is making a difference?

 

Those of us who have worked in maternity care for a while understand that the fundamental “prescription” for good birth and family outcomes is relationship. When we can authentically care for one another during pivotal life events, everyone feels the benefit. So how do we determine the right dosage of relationship in maternity care? What is the right frequency and delivery route for this wonder drug comprised of compassion, experience and a willingness to address the unmet needs of birthing families? Who is best qualified to support women throughout their pregnancies and what kinds of support do these workers need to do their job?

 

When we describe relationship design in terms of maternity services, we often refer to it as a “program”. As you define your program of care, how do you determine the value of community-based services vs. clinic or hospital-based maternity programs? How do you know that your methods and practices are the best methods for each mother you serve? And perhaps most importantly, if you are providing the best possible service, or a new and innovative service that makes things work better, how do you scale it and spread it so that it can become more available to everyone? If you, or your program, need to answer these questions, then perhaps Maternity Neighborhood can help.

 

There is a concept in business, and specifically in healthcare, that has gained popularity over the last decade that speaks to the question of scale of better products and services. “Disruptive Innovation” was coined by Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen to describe the process by which technology enables new entrants to provide goods and services that are less expensive and more accessible, and eventually replace—or “disrupt”—well-established competitors. A successful disruptive innovation involves three ingredients:

  1. Enabling technology—an invention or innovation that makes a product more affordable and accessible to a wider population.
  2. Innovative business model—something new and different (or timeless but reinvented for the modern world).
  3. Clear value network—a process where everyone involved in the transaction—customers (mothers), suppliers (providers) and stakeholders (society)—is each better off when the disruptive technology prospers.

 

Are you a Community-Based Disruptor? We’d love to hear from you and share your stories with our community of change agents for maternity care.

 

*Questions or feedback? Email info@maternityneighborhood.com*

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