The 7th Annual Black Maternal Health Conference

7th ANNUAL BLACK MATERNAL HEALTH CONFERENCE

“Centering the Role of Technology in Addressing Black Maternal Health Disparities”

Friday, April 5th, 2024

A Message From Our Director

Welcome to the 7th Annual Black Maternal Health Conference.

As the nation’s largest Black maternal health convening, each year I’m blown away by the interest, the response, and the engagement of people across all backgrounds and industries, urgently seeking answers to this crisis. There’s a mutual understanding that it will take all of us; We all have a part to play!

Centered on the role of technology in addressing Black maternal health disparities, this year’s conference creates a one-of-a-kind space to discuss innovations to end the adverse maternal health outcomes experienced by Black women. The speakers we have curated are nationally recognized changemakers, building community and putting power back into the hands of birthing people!

We’re also excited to premiere Black Motherhood Through the Lens, an award-winning documentary by filmmaker/producer Dr. Ade Osinubi, focusing on the birthing experiences of four Black women, from conception to postpartum. These lived experiences and shared stories lend faces and names to those this crisis most impacts. This moves the needle for change.

I hope you will leave the conference today engaged, educated, and ready to tackle the complex problem of eliminating maternal health inequities. We look forward to your passionate and committed perspectives, comments, and questions. Thanks again for joining us this year!

— Dr. Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha

Platform Information

Access Via Link

On the event day, you will be required to sign in to the event site to access the virtual conference.

• Click on the Login option on the event landing page.

• Enter valid email id on the Login popup.

• Enter a valid password on the Login popup.

• You might also need to enter valid OTP (“One Time Password”, as received in email) on the Verification Code popup window.

Once logged in, click to enter the virtual conference.

Platform Information

The Lobby

Once in the Lobby you can access the Lounge, Auditorium, Exhibit Hall, and Info Desk by clicking on the signage or using the navigation bar at the top of your screen.

All sessions will take place in the Auditorium. Click through from the Lobby, or by using the navigation bar. Once there, you can view the full agenda by clicking on the image of the screen at the front of the Auditorium.

The Agenda

When sessions are starting there will be a button to join.

Platform Information

Technical Support

If you experience any technical difficulties during the conference, navigate to the Info Desk for help.

Platform Information

On Day Two you will login, just as before, but the location will look a little different.

Just like Day One, you’ll click the entrance to enter the virtual conference.

Day Two

Once inside, click through to the Auditorium to view the movie premier.

Priemier Screening

AGENDA—DAY 1

9:00 AM Conference Greetings

9:15 AM Director Welcome, Center Introduction

9:30 AM Battling Bias: Centering the Lived Experience to Advance Perinatal Care

10:15 AM Q&A

10:30 AM BREAK

10:45 AM “Saving the Mamas and Babies” - A Medtech Solution Derived from Lived Experience

11:35 AM Q&A

11:45 AM PANEL DISCUSSION

12:35 PM Q&A

1:00 PM LUNCH/EXPO

2:00 PM Digital Advocacy for Change: Exploring Black Maternal Health Innovations, Social Media Impact, and Technology at the Mother Lab

2:45 PM Q&A

2:55 PM BREAK

3:05 PM At the Crossroads of Health, Equity and Technology

3:50 PM Q&A

4:00 PM WRAP-UP

4:15 PM NETWORKING SESSION

AGENDA—DAY 2

Black Motherhood Through The Lens Film Premiere

For the first time in Conference history, we’ll host the nationwide, full-length feature premiere of Black Motherhood Through the Lens, an award-winning documentary by filmmaker/producer Dr. Ade Osinubi, centering on the birthing experiences of four Black women, navigating the reproductive and maternal healthcare system from conception to postpartum.

4:45–5:30 PM Cocktails

5:30 PM Film Viewing

6:00–6:30 PM Panel Discussion with Film Maker and Film Participants

Our Speakers

Jessica Bell van der Wal

Dr. Elicia Harris

Layo George

Melissa Hanna

Wanda Irving

Theadora

James

Ariana McGee

Kimberly Seals Allers

Simmone Taitt

About Our Speakers

Jessica Bell van der Wal

Jessica Bell van der Wal is reframing the path to parenthood as the CEO and Founder of Frame, a venture inspired by her own challenging fertility and maternity journey. Founded in 2020, Frame is a virtual-first collaborative care model for fertility and family building. Prior to Frame, she led teams in growth, customer success and strategy at various early and late stage companies including Castlight Health, Nike, Deloitte Consulting and Genentech. She currently sits on the advisory boards of multiple digital health companies, educational institutions, nonprofits, and women’s empowerment organizations. Jessica’s foundational training in public health and international volunteer experience colors her passion for health solutions on a broad scale. Jessica holds a BA in Public Health from UNC Chapel Hill and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Dr. Elicia Harris

Dr. Elicia Harris, MD, MBA is the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Navigate Maternity. Dr. Harris is a board-certified OB/GYN who currently practices as an OB/ GYN Hospitalist in Indianapolis, IN. During her 13 years of practice, she spent over 10 years in private practice in Fort Wayne, IN. Dr. Elicia Harris has always been a passionate advocate for her patients and a warrior of healthcare disparities. In addition to providing excellent care to her patients, she also works as an advocate for healthcare policy and reform as the Treasurer of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) District V. She completed her undergraduate studies at Purdue University and her medical school training and OBGYN residency at Indiana University School of Medicine. She recently completed a Physician Executive Masters of Business Administration (EMBA) at IU Kelley School of Business.

Layo George

I have more than 10 years of experience in maternal health systems. I understand stakeholders’ needs and nuances and develop innovative communications and strategies. I lead a team of culturally competent multidisciplinary subject matter experts to address the maternal health crisis. I have led the creation of groundbreaking products for CRISP, a Health Information Exchange company. Before founding Wolomi, I was a quality improvement specialist at the Primary Care Association. and currently serve on the Unity Healthcare Board.

About Our Speakers

Melissa Hanna

Melissa Hanna, JD, MBA, is Co-founder and CEO of Mahmee, a maternal healthcare company on a mission to make the United States the best place in the world to give birth. Mahmee empowers families with wraparound support during the pregnancy and postpartum period. An activist-entrepreneur, Melissa received her Masters of Business Administration from the Peter F. Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University, and her Juris Doctor from Southwestern Law School where she now teaches as an adjunct professor of corporate and technology law. Melissa’s modus operandi has always been to forge cross-industry collaborations and partnerships to solve big challenges, and she believes that equitable access to healthcare for women and children is a challenge we can all solve by working creatively together.

Wanda Irving

Wanda Irving, MPA is forever the mother of Dr. Shalon Irving and Co-Founder of Dr. Shalon’s Maternal Action Project (DSMAP), Inc. DSMAP is a community driven, non-profit organization dedicated to alleviating Black maternal health disparities. The organization was established to honor Wanda’s daughter, Dr. Shalon, who passed away from preventable pregnancy complications in January 2017, three weeks after giving birth to her only child. Dr. Shalon was a brilliant researcher and fierce health equity champion. In an effort to continue Dr. Shalon’s legacy, Wanda co-founded DSMAP, where she is President of the Board and Acting President of the organization. Wanda is now fully dedicated to the mission of DSMAP and utilizes her keen expertise to enhance organizational resources such as Believe Her, an anonymous peer support app aimed to increase awareness of the Black maternal health crisis and promote evidence-based strategies that improve health outcomes for Black birthing people and families. Wanda is a highly sought-after health equity advocate appearing on national and influential media outlets such as NPR, MSNBC, GMA, Newsy, REVOLT, and Health Affairs, a peer- reviewed healthcare journal to name a few.

Theadora James

Theadora James, MHA is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Navigate Maternity. As a leader in project management and processes improvement for over 11 years at managed care organizations and large hospital systems (The VA Hospital System, Novant, and Centene) Thea brings a deep expertise in healthcare operations. Thea’s passion for healthcare stems from her experience growing up in her hometown, Gary Indiana. She witnessed many health disparities and inequities in midwestern, BIPOC communities. This inequity drove Thea to dedicate her life to help solve this injustice. Thea graduated from Indiana University with a B.S. in Healthcare Administration and a business foundations certificate from Kelley School of Business. She earned her Masters of Health Administration from Franklin University and a Data Analytics Certificate from Georgia Institute of Technology.

About Our Speakers

Ariana McGee

Ariana McGee is the Founder and CEO of Navigate Maternity (NM). NM has created a remote patient monitoring system for prenatal and postpartum patients. Mothers are dying and specifically, Black women are dying 3-4x the national average during childbirth and postpartum due to reactive care, data gaps, and bias. Ariana experienced the inequity in perinatal care after almost dying during childbirth with her fourth child. As a healthcare leader in the medical device and biopharmaceutical industries (BD, Biogen, Genzyme, etc.) for the last 11 years, Ariana brings a wealth of knowledge and is uniquely positioned as a mother and healthcare leader to commercialize NM. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband, AJ, and their four little ones – Jade (5), Trey (4), Naomi (2), and Aliya (1). “We’re here to save the mamas and the babies.”

Kimberly Seals Allers

Kimberly Seals Allers is an award-winning journalist, five-time author, international speaker, strategist, and advocate for maternal & infant health. A former senior editor at ESSENCE and writer at FORTUNE magazine, Kimberly is a leading voice on the racial and socio-cultural complexities of birth, breastfeeding, and motherhood. She is the founder of Irth, a new “Yelp-like” app for Black and brown parents to address bias and racism in maternity and infant care. Kimberly also created Birthright, a podcast about joy and healing in Black birth that centers on positive Black birth stories as a tool in the fight for birth justice and reverses the narrative of negative statistics common in mainstream media coverage of Black maternal health. Learn more at KimberlySealsAllers.com. Follow her @iamKSealsAllers on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Simmone Taitt

Simmone Taitt is the CEO and Founder of Poppy Seed Health, a telehealth app transforming the way we care for pregnant and postpartum people with 24/7 text access to doulas, midwives and nurses. On a mission to democratize accessibility, emotional support and well-being for all birthing people, Taitt comes to this work through the highly personal experience of navigating her own pregnancy loss in an inequitable medical system. Prior to Poppy Seed Health, Taitt spent thirteen years working on go-to-market strategies with early-stage startups Gilt Groupe, SpaFinder, and KidPass. She is a deep believer that technology can and should leverage its power to connect us all with radical empathy. Her work has been covered by The New York Times, CBS Mornings with Gayle King, Vogue and many more.

Our Day 2 Panelists

Dr. Adeiyewunmi (Ade) Osinubi

Shannon Benjamin

Shaylene (Shay)

Costa

Jai-Me Potter-Rutledge

About Our Day 2 Panelists

Dr. Adeiyewunmi (Ade) Osinubi

Dr. Adeiyewunmi (Ade) Osinubi is a documentary filmmaker, photographer, and an Emergency Medicine Resident Physician at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work focuses on sharing the stories of minoritized populations that often go untold. At the age of 16, Ade travelled to Mekelle, Ethiopia to co-produce her first documentary on obstetric fistula. Since then, Ade has produced films educating the public about various health topics in an accessible way. While in medical school, she independently produced Black Motherhood through the Lens, an award winning documentary about four Black women’s experiences in navigating the reproductive healthcare system. Her work on the film was also recognized in Forbes and PBS, amongst other places. In addition to film, Osinubi has published articles in the Washington Post, Essence, Teen Vogue, and Glamour Magazine on topics related to health equity. Due to her efforts, she was the recipient of the 2022 National Minority Quality Forum (NMQF) 40 under 40 Leader in Health Award and the 2023 Black Health Connect 40 under 40 award. She is also a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha and Gold Humanism Honor Societies. In the future, Ade hopes to continue to pursue a career in health journalism, using her passion for photography and film to elevate the voices of communities of color.

Shannon Benjamin

Shannon Benjamin hails originally from Washington DC. Shannon is a 39 year old mom of 1 rambunctious 4 year old daughter, dog mom to an 11 1/2 year old bloodhound mix, sister, daughter and friend. Shannon is an HBCU graduate that holds 1 bachelor degree and 2 masters’ degrees in biology and business. Shannon currently works in the biotech industry. Shannon loves to spend time with her daughter, playing with her dog, biking, and traveling with friends.

Shaylene (Shay) Costa

Shay Costa is a birthworker, mother, and community advocate living in Providence, RI. She has worked in maternal health for 6 years and in the medical field for 15 years. As a graduate of College Unbound, also based in Rhode Island, her BA in Organizational Leadership and Change has propelled her work onto the national stage with a beautifully refined anchor in social change. Shay has a love for mountain getaways, the wearable baby carrier, and soul line dancing whenever the beat drops.

Jai-Me Potter-Rutledge

Jai-Me Potter-Rutledge is currently a doctoral candidate at Salve Regina University, where she is studying humanities with a focus on the role of racial trauma, how healthcare is accessed, diversity in healthcare, health equity, and more broadly, racism in America. Professionally, she serves as the Assistant Dean of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at the School of Public Health at Brown University, and serves as a diversity consultant for Care New England, and holds a faculty appointment at the Alpert Medical School at Brown University. Jai-Me was the 2020 and 2021 recipient of the prestigious Doctoring Excellence Teaching Award and recognized as a positive champion of the learning environment of Alpert Medical School.

Our Sponsors

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Our Exhibitors

7th Annual Black Maternal Health Conference

Credentialing

April 5, 2024

Boston, MA

Physicians

Joint Accreditation Statement

In support of improving patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by Amedco LLC and QMED CME, LLC . Amedco LLC is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.

ACCME Credit Designation Statement

Amedco LLC designates this live activity for a maximum of 5.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits TM for physicians. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Nurses

ANCC Credit Designation Statement

Amedco LLC designates this activity for a maximum of 5.00 ANCC contact hours.