Carol Sakala (National Partnership for Women & Families) Carol Sakala, PhD, MSPH, leads maternal health and maternity care programming at the National Partnership for Women & Families, where she is also the Director of Childbirth Connection Programs. Alternative payment models, including episode payment and maternity care homes, play a central role in transforming the delivery of maternity care and driving toward equitable care and outcomes.
Dr. Sakala was a member of the LAN’s Clinical Episode Payment Workgroup and participated in the development of its APMs for maternity care, elective joint replacement, and coronary artery disease, including a focus on a range of patient-centered design elements. She also served on the Strategy Team that guided the LAN’s Maternity Multi-Stakeholder Action Collaborative (MAC). She is currently working with the Health Care Transformation Task Force on its initiative to advance maternal health outcomes through value-based payment.
Dr. Sakala led a group of 17 national leaders in the development of the 2018 consensus Blueprint for Advancing High-Value Maternity Care Through Physiologic Childbearing, with Innovative Delivery and Payment Systems as the first of six strategies for maternity care system transformation. Since 2002, she has been an investigator on the national Listening to Mothers surveys, as well as the recent Listening to Mothers in California survey. These surveys provide unique insights into the views, preferences, and experiences of childbearing women. She also serves on diverse policy-focused work groups and advisory bodies, develops core resources for the field, and guides childbirthconnection.org, an evidence-based website for childbearing women.