Federal Project Grant Award Summary

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) awarded Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) a $443,954 Project Grant effective June 1, 2026, through February 28, 2030, under the Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.865). This four-year R01 research project, titled "Obstetric Readiness in the Emergency Department: A Mixed-Methods Approach to Assessing Obstetric Readiness in Emergency Care," addresses the critical gap in maternal health services resulting from the closure of labor and delivery units across the United States. The research will identify emergency departments (EDs) most in need of obstetric readiness improvements, determine the necessary equipment and training resources required to provide high-quality emergency obstetric care, and evaluate whether obstetric readiness improvements correlate with improved patient outcomes.

MGH will conduct this mixed-methods investigation by leveraging an existing national ED inventory database linked to patient-level discharge data from eight diverse states to examine obstetric readiness in general EDs without specialized inpatient obstetric services. The project will analyze whether urbanicity and pregnancy stage influence pregnant and postpartum women's utilization of low-obstetric-resourced emergency settings, ultimately generating standardized frameworks for implementing and assessing obstetric readiness in EDs to address maternal morbidity and mortality in areas designated as maternity care deserts.