Saint Luke’s and UMKC to lead nationwide study on pregnant people with heart disease in effort to help combat maternal morbidity, mortality

(Press-News.org) KANSAS CITY, Mo. (September 30, 2024) – The University of Missouri-Kansas City Healthcare Institute for Innovations in Quality and Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute today announced a nationwide, four-year observational study of U.S. pregnant people with cardiovascular disease to better understand and combat maternal mortality and morbidity.

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health awarded more than $7.9 million to the UMKC Healthcare Institute for Innovations in Quality to fund the study, Heart Outcomes in Pregnancy Expectations (HOPE) for Mom and Baby, which has 36 confirmed enrolling sites nationwide.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of maternal death. Those who survive often face life-long disability due to higher rates of adverse pregnancy outcomes such as pre-eclampsia, hemorrhage, and preterm birth and cardiovascular events such as heart failure, stroke, peripheral artery disease, and coronary disease. These adverse events disproportionately impact Black, Hispanic, American Indian/Alaskan Native, and Asian/Pacific Islander pregnancies.

HOPE will study the care and outcomes of 1,000 pregnant individuals with heart disease to better understand the patient characteristics, treatment, and organization of health care delivery that most influence these outcomes so that standardized-care protocols can be developed and disseminated to combat the United States’ tragically high rate of cardiovascular-related morbidity and mortality.

HOPE was initiated as a two-site pilot by Saint Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City in 2019 at Saint Luke’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Philanthropic gifts from the Muriel McBrien Kauffman Family Foundation; the Victor E. Speas Foundation; Bank of America, N.A., Trustee; Saint Luke's Hospital Auxiliary provided the runway for the Institute’s nationwide HOPE study, said Anna Grodzinsky, MD (BLA '08/MD '09, MS '15), cardiologist at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute and associate professor of medicine at UMKC.

“Heart disease is responsible for more than a quarter of all pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S., yet we lack research that has followed this patient population,” Grodzinsky said. “The HOPE study will help us gain a better understanding of how we as providers can better care for these patients in a more standardized way in an effort to lower the risk of adverse outcomes.”

Grodzinsky was a co-principal investigator in the pilot phase along with Karen Florio, DO, MPH, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at both UMKC and the University of Missouri, now a co-principal investigator on the expanded study. Both will co-lead HOPE with principal investigator John Spertus, MD, MPH, the Healthcare Institute for Innovations in Quality’s founder and director, clinical director of outcomes research at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute, a UMKC professor of medicine, and the Daniel J. Lauer/Missouri Endowed Chair in Metabolic and Vascular Disease Research.

“The HOPE study will generate important new insights into the care of pregnant people with cardiovascular disease,” Spertus said. “We anticipate we will be able to share two key findings, including patient-level prediction models of adverse clinical outcomes and defining the structures of cardio-obstetrics care that are independently associated with better outcomes. Further, these patient-level risk models will be the foundational work for future randomized trials for improving the health of pregnant people with heart disease.”

“Guided by patients with lived experience and committed experts, the HOPE study will support improvements in patient-level care by developing risk models that can be used to support evidence-based protocols while also guiding enrolling centers on how best to organize cardio-obstetrics care to optimize outcomes and minimize disparities,” Florio said. “The study will further our understanding of the nuanced care needed for pregnant people with heart disease.”

About the University of Missouri-Kansas City Healthcare Institute for Innovations in Quality
Since 2017, the UMKC Healthcare Institute for Innovations in Quality has worked with a network of providers, payers, patients and nonprofit organizations to identify strategies to improve the value (better care at lower cost) and equity of healthcare in Kansas City. For more information about the institute, visit healthcareinstitute.umkc.edu.

About Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute
Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute is part of Saint Luke’s Health System, which serves the West Region of BJC Health System, one of the largest nonprofit health care organizations in the United States. The Heart Institute, a teaching affiliate of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, is one of the most distinguished cardiovascular programs in the country. Its legacy of innovation began more than 40 years ago when it opened as the nation’s first freestanding heart hospital. Since then, the nearly 200 board-certified specialists and cardiovascular experts have earned a global reputation for excellence in the treatment of heart disease, including interventional cardiology, cardiovascular surgery, imaging, heart failure, transplant, heart disease prevention, cardio-oncology, cardiometabolic disease, women’s heart disease, electrophysiology, outcomes research, and health economics by being the third hospital in the U.S. to achieve Comprehensive Cardiac Center certification from The Joint Commission.

In 2023, the Heart Institute completed its 1,000th heart transplant, making it one of only 23 advanced programs to have reached this milestone.

About the University of Missouri-Kansas City
The University of Missouri-Kansas City, one of four University of Missouri campuses, is a public research university serving more than 15,500 undergraduate, graduate and professional students. UMKC engages with the community and world based on its mission: placing student success at the center; leading in life and health sciences; advancing regional engagement; excelling in visual and performing arts; and promoting research and economic development. For more information about UMKC, visit umkc.edu.

Contacts:
Lindsey Stich, Saint Luke’s
402-613-3621
lstich@saintlukeskc.org

Stacy Downs, UMKC
816-235-1441 (desk)
816-651-7336 (mobile)
downs@umkc.edu

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