HJBR Mar-Apr 2019

Healthcare Journal of BATON ROUGE I  MAR / APR 2019 47 Rebekah E. Gee, MD, MPH Secretary, Louisiana DHH Jobs for the Mentally Ill Thanks to a federal grant, Louisianans with a serious mental illness will find it easier to secure employment. The grant provides the Department of Health’s Of- fice of Behavioral Health with 100 hours of training and technical assistance to help people with a serious mental illness find meaningful jobs. The Provider Visionary Opportunities to Increase Competitive Employment (VOICE) grant comes from the United States Department of Labor’s Office of Dis- ability Employment Policy. The Office of Disability Employment Policy provides the grant through its Employment First State Leadership Program. With this grant, the Office of Behavioral Health will collaborate with the Louisiana Rehabilitation Services System, Office of the Governor, Louisiana Workforce Com- mission, and others to help those in the target population with finding gainful em- ployment. It is one in a number of steps the Department of Health has made toward its agreement with the federal Department of Justice to ensure compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Department of Justice agreement requires that Louisiana residents with mental illness be cared for in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs, while also improving our existing behavioral health system. It came about in response to a Department of Justice inves- tigation’s findings that alleged Louisiana unnecessarily relies on nursing facilities to serve people with serious mental illness. The VOICE grant is another step toward helping Louisianans with a serious men- tal illness live full, vibrant, and productive lives in our communities. Louisiana’s Perinatal Quality Collab- orative In early January, the Louisiana Perinatal Quality Collaborative met in Lafayette for the second learning session of the Reduc- ing Maternal Morbidity Initiative, working toward reducing severe medical compli- cations from bleeding or severely elevated blood pressure during and after the birth process. The Quality Collaborative is comprised of 31 birthing facilities from around the state and is committed to reducing ma- ternal morbidity among mothers giving birth. It is a commitment the Department of Health has taken to heart after a recent re- port showed pregnancy-related deaths are rising faster in Louisiana than anywhere else in the United States. Heart disease and hemorrhage are the most common causes of pregnancy-related deaths. One of the most distressing things to come out of that report was the discov- ery that black women are four times more likely to die as a result of childbirth com- plications. Medical experts have pointed to reasons such as differences in the con- ditions of life, racism, differences in quality of medical care, and complexity of illness due to these factors. Dr. Pooja Mehta, medical director for the Quality Collaborative, has cited those statistics as the driving force behind the Quality Collaborative’s focus on prevent- ing maternal harm. The group is focusing on quick, consistent responses to bleeding and high blood pressure, as well as under- standing and narrowing racial disparities, according to Dr. Mehta. We look forward to the Quality Collab- orative’s findings and recommendations so that all pregnant women in Louisiana can expect a safe, healthy birthing experience. For more information about the Louisi- ana Department of Health, visit www.ldh. la.gov. n The VOICE Grant “The grant provides the Department of Health’s Office of Behavioral Health with 100 hours of training and technical assistance to help peo- ple with a serious mental illness find meaningful jobs.” “The Quality Collaborative is comprised of 31 birthing facilities from around the state and is committed to reducing maternal morbidity among mothers giving birth.”