Crawfordsville Fire Department Awarded Funding From State For Expand Work To Improve Perinatal Health Outcomes

Crawfordsville Fire Department’s Division of Community Paramedicine announced today it has received a grant totaling $444,390 from the Indiana Department of Health to expand access to quality care for pregnant women and infants through the department’s Mobile Integrated Health program (MIH) as part of the state’s Health Issues and Challenges program, which was established by the Indiana General Assembly in 2021 with funding from the American Rescue Plan Act.

The Bridging gaps of Underserved Neonate families through Delivery, Labor and Education program (BUNDLE) will be an expansion of Project Swaddle™, which currently provides perinatal services to at-risk pregnant women who are under the care of a Franciscan obstetrician.  This expansion will increase access to care by opening perinatal services to all expectant families in Montgomery County regardless of their obstetrician provider.

“We are very grateful to the state of Indiana for providing the necessary funding and seeing the value of Project Swaddle and the impact it has on local mothers and children,” said Project Swaddle Paramedic Darren Forman. “This grant will help us expand the impact of our program to additional Montgomery County mothers and infants.”

Beyond expanding the reach of Project Swaddle, BUNDLE will additionally enhance the scope of the Crawfordsville MIH-CP by adding two additional medical professionals focusing on health education, utilization of MIH social workers to ensure wrap-around care is being fully accomplished, and partnering with the entirety of the family’s care team to address any clinical needs.

The goal of the program is to improve maternal and infant health outcomes in the community through evidence-based education, increased social connections, and increased access to provider care teams. Through this funding, the MIH BUNDLE program will incorporate an Emergency Medical Record system, and a formal evaluation will be conducted with Purdue University School of Public Health to measure the success of these programs.  The program is projected to begin on August 1st, 2022, and will run throughout December 31st, 2024.

This organization is one of more than 150 entities to receive funding for the Health Issues and Challenges program, which focuses on the following priority areas: tobacco use, food insecurity/obesity, lead exposure, hepatitis C, chronic disease, public health prevention programs, and substance use disorder and community health workers. Priority was given to applicants that demonstrated high need and high impact in their grant proposals.

The state awarded more than $35 million statewide in the initial round of funding.

For more information about BUNDLE, contact EMS Chief Paul Miller at the Crawfordsville Fire Department or visit the Crawfordsville Fire Department website.