Gundersen Heath System is one of four organizations across the state to receive a grant from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health aimed at improving the health of mothers and their children and health equity in Wisconsin. Gundersen is the only facility outside the Milwaukee area to receive grant dollars.
The funding, titled “Healthy Wisconsin Families: Investing in the Infrastructure of Maternal and Infant Health,” was funneled through UW from the state Department of Health Services as part of the American Rescue Plan Act. The university received $5.5 million from DHS.
“This was an unprecedented opportunity for the UW School of Medicine and Public Health to bring together health systems and community organizations in new ways to create solutions that address the long-standing challenge of poor maternal and infant health in our state,” says Dr. Amy Kind, associate dean for social health sciences and programs at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, in a statement released by the school.
Using the $1.14 million it received, Gundersen will create a program focused on prenatal care for patients with substance and mood disorders, as well as pregnant teens. In addition, it will collaborate with the St. Clare’s Rotary Mobile Clinic to reach people in rural areas experiencing healthcare barriers.
Heather Riese, MD, is a physician in the OB/GYN department. She’s the lead for the Pregnancy Addiction and Social Support (PASS) clinic at Gundersen and has experience and training in perinatal mood disorders and substance abuse. The clinic’s aim, Dr. Riese said, is to provide full-spectrum care for soon-to-be-parents, which includes connecting them to resources both within and outside of Gundersen. The grant will expand that effort, helping PASS to develop a prenatal program at the Healthy Living Center, housed within the La Crosse Area Family YMCA.
“We have a lot of patients who never really had parental role models,” Dr. Riese says. “They don’t know how to do things like cook, they don’t know how to parent. There are so many life skills they don’t have, on top of being unhoused or having poor social support. We wanted to help develop a more supportive community and give these patients use the tools to achieve and maintain sobriety.”
The program will help expand and make more accessible the offerings already in place, including monthly classes that are divided into groups based on need. There, attendees can meet with a community health worker and doula, a recovery coach, and prenatal yoga and mindfulness instructors, as well as take part in birthing and breastfeeding education. There will also be access to behavioral health and physical therapy.
And within two years, PASS would like to expand this model of care into three or four rural areas in Gundersen’s service area using the mobile medicine clinic.
“By going out monthly to rural areas, we can bring care to them and eliminate barriers,” Dr. Riese says.
Getting this funding for the program is significant, Dr. Riese says, especially being the only program in western Wisconsin to be chosen.
“A big part of this is they really wanted to reach rural patients, and we have that advantage,” she says. “I think that’s what helped with the grant, knowing we can reach more people in a wider area.”
Dr. Riese added that Gundersen resident physicians, as well as medical students from the local universities, will be an integral part of the mission. The goal there is to expose and educate future providers on the issues seen at the center – issues they hope to correct, not only for the life of the parent, but for their babies, too.
“The advantage of this is we’re giving them the confidence that they’re doing a good job in pregnancy so that once they’re no longer pregnant, we’ve at least set up that foundation for them so they can rely on these life skills that we’re helping them develop,” Dr. Riese says.
For more information about the Healthy Living Center and the PASS program, call (608) 775-4930.