Guest Blogger: Roxane White
President and CEO, Nurse-Family Partnership
As health care gets more high tech, we need high-touch providers all the more.
One of the best ways for carriers and providers to ensure that their patients are thriving and keeping costs down is to partner with proven programs like Nurse-Family Partnership.
With a decades-long track record based on the gold standard in scientific research — randomized controlled studies — we know nurse home visitors can keep moms and babies healthy during pregnancy and in the baby’s critical first years of life.
Big health care systems have a big opportunity to partner with home visitors so they’ll have eyes and ears in the community.
Watch a home visit and you’ll see magic happen.
A young mother sings the ABCs to her 5-month-old son who listens intently.
“He knows it,” the mother says confidently. “And every time I sing it, he makes eye contact.”
Sitting beside the 19-year-old is the nurse who has visited this young mother throughout her pregnancy and the first months of her baby’s life.
The nurse serves as a coach, asking the young mother questions and building confidence that doesn’t come naturally since she had little mothering herself as one of seven children from four different dads.
“The research has shown that the more you talk with your baby, the more you sing with them and interact with them, the more that helps with their development,” the nurse says.
The two talk about why the immunizations the baby will get later that day are so important and how she’s her baby’s first teacher.
At Nurse-Family Partnership, we foster relationships that are long and deep.
That’s why we can be so valuable to large health systems.
A young pregnant woman can visit a clinic and get advice from a doctor. Our nurse can be sure that she’s following that advice.
Investing in care up front leads to proven outcomes: healthier pregnancies, better child development and increased economic self-sufficiency for mothers and children down the road.
Better informed moms become better parents who have stronger relationships with their providers and therefore become smarter health care consumers.
We all know that we need to do a better job of integrating our health systems.
Nurse-Family Partnership provides the bridge from large systems directly to the place where high-risk patients feel most comfortable: their homes.
In health care, we’re all seeking happy, healthy patients. The potential for tapping our proven program is immense. Nurse-Family Partnership currently is serving over 31,000 low-income moms in 43 states, the U.S. Virgin Islands and 6 Tribal communities.
Our data show that we could reach many, many more: as many as 700,000 low-income, mothers across the U.S.
We help moms take great care of themselves and their babies so they can stretch to the next level: finishing school, getting a good job and helping their children do well in school.
The bang for the buck is incredible. A RAND Corp. study found that every dollar invested in Nurse-Family Partnership saves us $5.70. A new study by Dr. Ted Miller published this year estimates billions in savings for our public health programs.
It’s time for all of us to ramp up and go big with this big opportunity.
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