New Findings on Managed Care from Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health Summarized (Shared labor-Public Private Partnerships for Maternal Health Equity): Managed Care

2026 MAR 12 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Investigators discuss new findings in Managed Care. According to news reporting out of Boston, Massachusetts, by NewsRx editors, research stated, “The United States faces a worsening maternal health crisis, with mortality rates far exceeding those of peer nations and persistent inequities for Black, Indigenous, and rural women. Medicaid finances over 40% of U.S. births, yet fiscal pressure, heightened scrutiny of program spending, and political resistance to benefit expansion constrain states’ ability to adopt new maternal health interventions.”

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from the Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health, “In this environment, outcome-indexed public-private partnerships (PPPs) offer a pragmatic pathway to advance maternal health equity while tying expenditures to measurable value. This paper examines the promise and limitations of emerging FemTech innovations such as virtual doula care, remote patient monitoring, and AI-enabled risk-assessment-and the structural barriers that impede their adoption in Medicaid. We argue that innovation failures reflect misaligned incentives rather than lack of technological potential. To address this gap, we propose a coordinated policy framework that aligns the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Transforming Maternal Health Model and Medicaid Section 1115 waivers across the innovation lifecycle.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “This approach enables disciplined experimentation, independent evaluation, and scalable deployment of equity-focused technologies within Medicaid, safeguarding maternal health gains under constrained fiscal conditions.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Shared labor-Public Private Partnerships for Maternal Health Equity. Health Affairs Scholar, 2026;4(2).

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Meghana Sai Iragavarapu, Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, United States. Additional authors for this research include Rasheca Logendran and Halle Tecco.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1093/haschl/qxag038. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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