Maternal Health Data Regional Summit
Addressing the issue of Maternal Health Data
Improving how information moves across maternal health care
Fixing the maternal health crisis depends on timely, coordinated care across pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum. But essential information still does not move reliably among the clinicians, hospitals, health plans, public agencies, and community partners supporting patients and families.
KC Digital Drive is bringing together maternal health, health care, government, community, data, and technology leaders from Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa to focus on a practical question: How can we improve the way maternal health information is captured, shared, and used across the full episode of care?
The work includes three opportunities to participate, from an introductory virtual session to a technical interoperability discussion and a regional, cross-disciplinary summit.
October 21 | Maternal Health + Interoperability: A Shared Session with DirectTrust
8:00 a.m.–12 p.m. | Oracle Innovations Campus | Kansas City, Missouri
KC Digital Drive and DirectTrust will bring together participants from their respective maternal health and health information exchange communities for a shared morning focused on improving how critical information moves across pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum care.
The morning will explore how better document exchange can reduce provider burden and strengthen continuity of care, drawing on findings from the 2026 Maternal Health Plugathon and real-world maternal health use cases.
This session may be especially useful for maternal health leaders, health care providers, health information exchange and technology partners, payers, and others interested in the technical and systems side of maternal health information exchange.
Please contact jfitzpatrick@kcdigitaldrive.org if you are a healthcare provider, a payer, or an EHR supplier as several of those seats remain available. General registration is now closed.
October 21 | Maternal Health Data Regional Summit
12–5 p.m. | Oracle Innovations Campus | Kansas City, Missouri
The Regional Summit brings the conversation across disciplines. Participants from Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa will focus on practical maternal health data and care use cases, persistent barriers to information sharing, and opportunities to improve coordination across the region.
Rather than discussing interoperability in the abstract, participants will work together around three points in the perinatal episode of care:
- Pregnancy notification and risk assessment
- Sharing birth plans, preadmission orders, and antepartum summaries
- Sharing postpartum discharge and care plans
The goal is to identify practical opportunities for improvement and help shape regional recommendations that can be shared with state and federal leaders.
Please contact jfitzpatrick@kcdigitaldrive.org if you are a healthcare provider, a payer, or an EHR supplier as several of those seats remain available. General registration is now closed.
For those who will be in Kansas City on the evening of October 21, we encourage you to consider the Harlem Nights Celebration for one of the great maternal health partners in our region, Uzazi Village.
Who Should Participate
Improving maternal health requires both systems-level knowledge and the firsthand perspectives of people providing, supporting, and experiencing care.
We welcome Medicaid and maternal health leaders; health care providers and health systems; health plans and payers; health information exchanges and technology partners; midwives, doulas, and community health workers; community-based maternal health organizations; researchers and advocates; and patients and others with lived experience.
Technical expertise is not required to participate in the Regional Summit. The October 1 virtual session is available for anyone who would like additional background on the technical concepts before October.
Why This Work Matters
More than 80% of pregnancy-related deaths reviewed by Maternal Mortality Review Committees are considered preventable. At the same time, the people and organizations responsible for maternal care often cannot easily exchange the information needed to coordinate services, assess risk, and support patients throughout pregnancy and postpartum care.
Improving those connections isn’t solely a technology problem. It requires health care, government, technology, payers, community organizations, and people with lived experience to understand where information breaks down and work together on practical ways to improve it.
That’s what this series of conversations is designed to do.
October 21 Location
Oracle Innovations Campus
8779 Hillcrest Road
Kansas City, MO 64138
Free parking is available. All guests will pass through a security check upon arrival.
The morning Shared Session with DirectTrust and the afternoon Maternal Health Data Regional Summit require separate registration. Participants are welcome to register for one or both.
Registration for the October 21 events closes October 6. Please contact jfitzpatrick@kcdigitaldrive.org for more information.
Past Session:
October 1 | Pre-Summit Virtual Session
Virtual | One hour
This virtual session is designed to help participants prepare for the Maternal Health Data Regional Summit, especially those who may be less familiar with the technical language and concepts that will come up during the Summit.
We’ll provide an accessible introduction to health data exchange and interoperability, explain some of the terminology you’ll hear at the Summit, and connect those concepts to the maternal health challenges and use cases we’ll explore together.
No technical background is required. The goal is to give participants enough context to follow the conversation, ask questions, and contribute their own expertise.
