Awarded the AHA Edward S. Cooper Award!
The American Heart Association's Edward S. Cooper Award was given to us at the 2024 Philadelphia Heart Ball on 3/23. They were honored for the accomplishments of Heart Safe Motherhood. Below is an excerpt from an interview done with Heart.org:
The American Heart Association, the world’s largest nonprofit organization devoted to a world of healthier lives for all, announces co-founders of Heart Safe Motherhood Sindhu Srinivas [SHRIN-e-vas], MD, MSCE, a professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Adi Hirshberg, MD, an associate professor of clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology also at Penn, will be recognized as the 2024 Edward S. Cooper Award Honorees at the 2024 Philadelphia Heart Ball on March 23. Their evidence-based program improves health outcomes in postpartum women with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy.
“Patients are at high risk for stroke and other complications in the first 10 days after delivery,” says Dr. Hirshberg. “Heart Safe Motherhood remotely connects patients with their providers and encourages them to input their daily blood pressure readings in and get automated feedback so that if it is high, we can connect with the patient and figure out the best next steps to keep them safe.”
“Preeclampsia is one of the leading reasons people get readmitted to the hospital after delivery,” said Dr. Srinivas. “To help prevent this, when we asked patients to come to the office, we only were seeing about 25% of Black patients and 40% of white patients. We knew we needed to find a better way to engage with patients to help prevent post-delivery complications related to preeclampsia. And that was the origin of Heart Safe Motherhood”
By overcoming in-person barriers to care, the Heart Safe Motherhood program has reduced disparities in care as well as lowered readmission rates for new mothers. Drs. Srinivas and Hirshberg combined their shared passion for maternal-fetal medicine and co-founded a solution to the health inequities associated with access to quality postpartum blood pressure care for mothers in the Greater Philadelphia community. Rooted in science and patient partnership, Heart Safe Motherhood has won multiple national and innovation awards.
“We are so thrilled to recognize the work of Dr. Srinivas and Dr. Hirshberg through Heart Safe Motherhood with the Edward S. Cooper Award,” said Jennifer Litchman-Green, executive director of the American Heart Association in Philadelphia. “They join the ranks of other impactful physicians, researchers and medical professionals whose many outstanding contributions to the Greater Philadelphia community exemplify the best of humankind and the American Heart Association’s mission.”
Watch the video created by AHA, to see even more!