# CTSA Admin Supp2 Maternal Mortality - UL1 - Revision

> **NIH NIH UL1** · UNIV OF ARKANSAS FOR MED SCIS · 2020 · $228,000

## Abstract

The lack of obstetric services impacts more than 27 million women and infants in the US and represents
significant resource and financial burdens for primarily rural states. Hypertension (HTN) in pregnancy
including preeclampsia (PEC) is a major health problem and is associated with significant increased
severe maternal morbidity (SMM) and mortality (MM). Management of a chronic condition such as HTN,
especially in a pregnant population residing in rural areas, can have a significant impact on optimal
maternal/neonatal outcomes. However, the use of advanced telecommunication technologies to support and
promote long-distance clinical health care, including telehealth and remote patient monitoring (RPM) can provide
rural areas with specialty health care services that can increase the quality of care, reduce costly readmissions
and emergent care visits, and lower healthcare disparities. The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
(UAMS), the only academic health science center in the state, serves as one of the only referral sources for high-
risk pregnancies from rural Arkansas. Many of these women travel up to 4 hours one-way for prenatal visits. Not
only does this distance from the healthcare team place a burden on the patient financially, it also poses as a
barrier to receive timely interventions to pregnant women who require them. UAMS has nearly 15 years of
experience pioneering telemedicine (TM) in a primarily rural state, Arkansas (AR). This proposed application
aims to develop and test a protocol to test an integration of RPM for monitoring blood pressure (BP) in pregnant
women with elevated BP into the standard of care in rural TM clinic for high-risk pregnancies which is supported
by a 24/7 Call Center(CC). This proposal in line with goals of the Administrative Supplement to Expand
Research Focused on Maternal Mortality and pregnancy-associated morbidity in the U.S. to strengthen
evidence-based care and prevention strategies and improve outcomes in low-resource settings and high
burden populations (e.g., racial/ethnic and/or rural) within the U.S. Additionally, this proposal aligns with the
mission of CTSA U01 grant which includes expanding clinical and translational research opportunities across the
lifespan and in underrepresented populations along with expanding the impact of clinical and translational
research in and with rural populations. Overall goals is to improve care for pregnant women with HTN who live
in rural, low-health resource areas by integrating RPM into current TM services. Therefore, we propose to
demonstrate that an integrated TM+CC+RPM system with multi-level intervention will improve patients'
compliance and patient care while addressing disparities in maternal morbidity and mortality. The study's aims
include: Aim 1: Develop a self-monitoring RPM protocol that integrates into the existing IDHI rural telemedicine
(TM) clinic and call center (CC) model for monitoring HTN in pregnancy. (TM + CC+ RPM) Aim 2: Implem...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10200507
- **Project number:** 3UL1TR003107-02S4
- **Recipient organization:** UNIV OF ARKANSAS FOR MED SCIS
- **Principal Investigator:** Laura P James
- **Activity code:** UL1 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $228,000
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2020-09-15 → 2024-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10200507

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10200507, CTSA Admin Supp2 Maternal Mortality - UL1 - Revision (3UL1TR003107-02S4). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10200507. Licensed CC0.

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