CIFF Award

“American Delivery” – a powerful documentary that examines the nation’s maternal mortality crisis and the nurses working to solve it – received the prestigious Roxanne T. Mueller Audience Choice Award, the top honor at the Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF48). The award was presented at the CIFF48 Closing Night Awards Ceremony on Saturday, April 13.

The documentary, directed by Carolyn Jones and produced by Lisa Frank, features MetroHealth President and CEO Airica Steed, Ed.D., RN, MBA, FACHE – a fourth-generation nurse – and the health system’s innovative Nurse-Family Partnership program, which pairs nurses with pregnant patients throughout their pregnancies and until their children’s second birthday. The filmmakers also followed MetroHealth’s Dionna Coleman, a registered nurse with the Nurse-Family Partnership, on her bi-weekly home visits with her patient, Jess, a first-time mom-to-be.

“Please join me in congratulating Carolyn, Lisa and the entire ‘American Delivery’ team on this much deserved recognition,” Dr. Steed said. “I also want to thank the filmmakers for shining a light on this important issue and allowing MetroHealth to share how we are confronting this crisis head on. Addressing the maternal mortality crisis must be a top priority in America. This film will help, but it is also up to all of us become tireless advocates for moms and babies.”

The film is now available to watch through CIFF Streams, the virtual portion of the festival that runs through Sunday, April 21.

National health statistics show that Black women are three times more likely than others to die from pregnancy-related causes. In fact, Cuyahoga County has one of the highest rates of maternal and infant mortality in the country for Black women and babies, according to the Ohio Department of Health, and those grim figures continue to rise.

Dr. Steed is highlighted throughout the film as a nurse who is taking on health inequity as the leader of a nationally renowned public healthcare system. But she also brings a personal perspective, sharing her own experience with inadequate care and misdiagnosis during pregnancy.

“I easily could have been among the horrifying statistics cited in the documentary,” Dr. Steed said. “During two of my pregnancies, I nearly lost my life to pre-eclampsia, a dangerous condition that affects Black women at a higher rate than others. I survived both times, but far too many women do not.”

Since Dr. Steed joined MetroHealth in December 2022, she has been sounding the alarm about health disparities. She aims to make MetroHealth a national model of how to end health inequity by making high-quality healthcare accessible to all and eliminating the glaring gap in life expectancies. That work includes a laser focus on eradicating the maternal health crisis.

By the time many at-risk individuals get pregnant and see a MetroHealth provider, they have already been impacted by factors beyond medical care that can affect their health and well-being. These factors – often called the social drivers of health – might include a lack of economic opportunity, food insecurity, housing instability and so much more.

MetroHealth – through its Institute for H.O.P.E.²™ – is working with organizations throughout the community to connect patients with resources that can help them overcome these obstacles. Other efforts underway include linking pregnant patients with community health workers and expanding access to prenatal and post-partum care as well as pediatric care for their babies once they are born.

And, of course, there’s MetroHealth’s Nurse-Family Partnership, which was featured in the film.

Through regular home nurse visits, first-time moms receive information on preventive care (prenatal care, smoking cessation, future pregnancy planning, etc.) and are connected with local health and educational resources. They also get information on improving their diets and reducing their use of cigarettes, alcohol and other substances.

“American Delivery” also includes stories from across the United States, from California to Kentucky to New York, and was initially inspired by the nurse leaders from the Marian K. Shaughnessy Nurse Leadership Academy at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University.