Examination of a death due to cardiomyopathy by a maternal mortality review committee

Recommendations for Maternal Mortality Review Committees in the United States: A content analysis

“…Therefore, they recommend the establishment of legal protections for members in MMRCs from civil and criminal liabilities, establishing MMRC member legal authority to review cases, and protocols for data collection such as those included in the Maternal Mortality Bill: Georgia Senate Bill 273. [13] Shellhaas et al, 2019 [14] recommend legislative and statutory protection to guide and support MMRCs in data collection, reporting, and review processes. Furthermore, the authors called for increasing legislative support in establishing MMRCs and passage of federal legislation to support MMRCs.…”

“…[14] They further emphasized the need to increase legislative support in establishing MMRCs and passage of federal legislation to support all MMRCs in providing direction for data collection, review processes, and reporting. [13,14] Data Quality and Management Several recommendations to address the concerns about data quality and management arose from the reviewed papers. Data for MMRCs can be drawn from a variety of sources, including vital records, medical records related to birth, fetal death certi cates, autopsy and coroner reports, social service records, health insurance records, and law enforcement records.…”

“…Three of the papers [14,16,17] speci cally recommend use of the Maternal Mortality Review Information Application (MMRIA) that allows access to and sharing of data across participating MMRCs in the United States. The MMRIA is a standardized data collection tool and data repository run by the CDC that facilitates MMRC investigations into maternal deaths.…”

“…These checklist tools help in maintaining con dentiality, protection of data, and the speci c cause of pregnancy-related death. [17,18] In-Depth Review of Pregnancy-Related Deaths Four of the papers [14,16,18,19] recommended in-depth review of preventable maternal deaths by the MMRC. The primary concern of the authors here is that some of the factors that lead to maternal deaths such as suicide, drug overdose, and violence, are not typically included in MMRC analyses but are relevant causes of maternal mortality.…”

“…In addition, Anderson et al [16] further emphasized the need to create a standardized process for disseminating review information and follow-up across all MMRCs. Shellhaas et al [14] and Main EK (2012) [18] each reiterated the importance of MMRCs answering the six review questions delineated in Table 1.…”