Program Description
Fetal Infant Mortality Review (FIMR) is a community based, action-oriented process aimed at improving services, systems, and resources for women, infants, and families.
It involves a continuous quality improvement cycle of data gathering, case review, community action, and changes in community systems.
Multidisciplinary community teams examine confidential, de-identified cases of fetal and infant deaths and identify community improvement recommendations and then are charged with developing and implementing plans leading to positive change.
FIMR focuses on systems issues and avoids blaming or placing responsibility on individual behavior
Fetal and infant deaths are a community problem and too multidimensional for responsibility to rest in any one place or system
The review includes a family interview to share the voices of those who have lost an infant.
Priority Population
- Black, African American families in areas of high infant mortality.
What is the problem we are working to address?
- High infant mortality continues to plague Cuyahoga County
- Racial and socioeconomic disparities persist
- Population-level data is unable to provide a complete picture of why babies die
Why does it matter?
- Reviews of individual cases help teams understand families’ experiences, including racism, and how those experiences may have impacted maternal and child outcomes.
- FIMR teams use the findings to take action that can prevent future infant deaths and improve the systems of care and resources for women, infants, families
- Reduction in infant mortality and infant mortality disparities
- Systems-level improvements including service delivery, resources, care for birthing persons and families
- Improved and expanded community partnerships
- Inform and engage institutional collaborators in addressing system gaps
- Prevention and quality improvement initiatives
What are the solutions?
- An annual data report is published within the Cuyahoga County Annual Child Fatality Report
- Formal presentations are shared at various community stakeholder groups and local hospital grand rounds
- The ‘Cuyahoga Pregnancy Emergency Information Palm Card’ was created to serve as a conversation starter for pregnant patients in Cuyahoga County to help improve patient-provider communication and to increase childbirth preparedness in emergent & non-emergent situations.
- Informing pregnant persons that not all hospitals have Labor & Delivery (L&D) services and reviewing which ones in Cuyahoga County do.
Key Partners
Fetal & Infant Mortality Review – The National Center for Fatality Review and Prevention (ncfrp.org)
Program Contacts
- Supervisor: Michele Benko – mbenko@ccbh.net or x1528
- Program Manager: Erin Dodds – edodds@ccbh.net or x1537