Curbside Care

By Amanda Jepson | Categories: | Comments Off on Curbside Care

Boston Medical Center (BMC) recognizes how critical the first six weeks of life are for birthing people and babies. Forty percent of publicly insured birthing people never return for a postpartum appointment. To close this gap, BMC launched the Curbside Care program in January 2023 with the goal of mitigating barriers to postpartum care through a mobile unit.

Curbside Care is a mobile health delivery program that provides high-touch, comprehensive wraparound services for birthing people and their infants in the first six weeks of life outside of their homes in Boston—at the curb! Funded by the Boston Celtics Shamrock Foundation, Curbside Care replaces traditional postpartum visits in this hospital and eliminates the need for transportation and childcare for postpartum appointments. Our clinical staff of doctors, nurse practitioners, certified nurse-midwives, and an international board of lactation consultant examiner provide a range of services including feeding assessments, lactation support, jaundice evaluation, postpartum depression and hypertension screenings, and contraceptive services all on the mobile unit. A community wellness advocate recruits pregnant patients and performs a needs assessment for each dyad. Patients receive material needs, such as diapers, strollers, and food, at each visit.

Curbside Care is an interdepartmental initiative run by the pediatrics and OBGYN departments at BMC. Other hospital partnerships include the Breastfeeding Equity Center, the Economic Justice Hub, and the Center for the Urban Child and Healthy Family. Community partners also include Brewster Ambulance Service, the Vital Village Network, and New England Mothers First.

BMC has cared for 519 patients in the last 12 months, with an average of 3.7 visits per patient. Of the patients seen, 63.97 percent identified as Black and 31.17 percent identified as Hispanic/Latino. All patients received lactation support and were screened for material needs and postpartum depression. All patients reside in Boston ZIP codes, primarily in the Dorchester, Mattapan, and Roxbury neighborhoods. Curbside Care patients have a 2.9 percent “no-show” rate, compared with 15.3 percent in BMC’s pediatric clinic and 18.8 percent in the postpartum OBGYN clinic.