SMFM GR Committee meeting notes (Katie)
Present: Katie Schubert, Lisa Hollier, Michael Paglia, Qing Li, Dana Block Abraham, Dan O’Keeffe, Melissa
Rosenstein (via cell phone).
Washington Update
The President’s budget request was released today. Although a policy “wish list” largely ignore on the
Hill, the request outlines the Administration’s priorities for the future. He provided for sequester relief, funding discretionary programs – both defense and nondefense – outside of the Budget Control Act caps, which is an increase in overall discretionary spending of about 7%. For NIH, he requested $31.3 billion, an increase of about 4%. Katie is still wading through the documents and will send more information.
The FY2016 appropriations process has begun with House GOP Chairman Tom Cole (R-OK) indicating that he would like to hold more hearings than in the last two years and craft a bill for Committee consideration. This is a change in the way business was conducted over the last two Congresses, and
Cole’s GOP roster includes veterans of the Appropriations Committee with moderate Republicans who are supportive of domestic spending for HHS programs, like Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) and Rep. Charlie
Dent (R-PA). Cole’s counterparts on the Democrat side include Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), who has served as ranking member on the subcommittee for the last two Congresses, Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard
(D-CA), Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and new Labor-H subcommittee member Rep. Chakah Fattah (D-PA).
Katie will work with the GR Committee and Health Policy Committee to write policy guidance language – it will likely look similar to last year’s as there was no official committee report accompanying the appropriations bill, just a list of items that HHS should update the appropriations committee on.
Recap of 2014
SMFM was extremely busy on the government relations side in 2014.
On the topic of Medications in Pregnancy and Lactation, SMFM organized a stakeholder meeting in June of 2014 with federal agencies and other stakeholders on the issue, wrote a report and then followed up in October with a meeting of nonfederal stakeholders on the matter. The Coalition to Advance Maternal
Therapeutics was thus born. With a steering committee including SMFM, ACOG, AAP and March of
Dimes, the groups created Guiding Principles, submitted legislative language to the House Energy &
Commerce Committee regarding the creation of an interagency task force and report from FDA to
Congress. SMFM will continue to lead this coalition in 2015, and work to develop longer term legislative goals, as well as the incorporation of the short term goals into 21 st Century Cures or another viable legislative vehicle.
SMFM also led an effort on Capitol Hill and with HHS to ensure that the 2012 guidelines published by
SMFM, ACOG and ACNM are at the top of HHS’s radar as they strategize to reduce infant mortality.
Beginning with a professional society letter to HHS in August to Secretary Burwell, SMFM and others worked with an educational grant from CerviLenz to host a Congressional Briefing on the topic. With over 100 attendees, SMFM President Dr. Vincenzo Berghella moderated and presented on the issue of preterm birth, with participation from March of Dimes’ Medical Advisor Dr. Siobhan Dolan, Wayne State
University researchers Dr. Sonia Hassan and Medicaid Health Plans of America CEO Jeff Myers on the

need to prevent preterm birth to ultimately reduce infant mortality, and to raise awareness of this important public health issue.
Finally, SMFM continued it work to advocate for research funding at the NIH and other agencies. As
Chair of the Friends of NICHD for the latter half of the year, Katie organized a briefing with Friends members at the NIH to hear about the research being conducted there. Katie will remain on the
Executive Committee in 2015.
Priorities for 2015
The Government Relations Committee set three top line priorities for 2015, along with two projects related to state matters and website.
Priorities for 2015 include:
1.
Medications in pregnancy and lactation – continuing the Coalition to Advance Maternal
Therapeutics and to engage with SMFM members once legislative language is ready to ensure
Congressional support for such initiatives. The GR Committee will vet relevant documents and materials in support of such an initiative as well.
2.
Preterm birth/guidelines – building on the December briefing, ensuring greater awareness on the part of elected officials of the 2012 guidelines and importance of preventing preterm birth.
Activities include a letter to HRSA from our Congressional champions and the societies in support of pre-term birth in the CoIIN initiative, as well as other potential activities related to the regulatory side. There is also the potential to incorporate our policy guidance language related to preterm birth.
3.
Health disparities. A new topic for 2015, but one which SMFM has been concerned with, is health disparities. The GR Committee would like to support a Congressional briefing on the topic, specific to maternal health. The goals of the briefing would be to raise awareness of health disparities, support state maternal mortality reviews (there is federal legislation on this –
Katie will check into the status of reintroduction of such a bill), with a plea for additional funds to close the gaps in maternal mortality data. a.
Side note – Dana will be taking the lead on a potential AMA resolution on the importance of this data. Lisa offered to assist. Katie will add this as a standing item on the regular GR call agendas. b.
Michael indicated that working with the state medical societies to get a blurb on this in their regular correspondence could also be helpful. SMFM should try to get a sense of which of its members are active or engaged with their state societies. The discussion surrounded starting small and focusing on those states that are the largest – California,
Texas, New York, Illinois, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The projects discussed by the committee include:
1.
State maps/network for SMFM members who are involved in state issues. Dana, Kate, Michael and Lisa will take the lead in working on this. The question remains what is the state information that needs to be included. Kate suggested that information such as “how to set up a perinatal collaborative” could be helpful while Lisa added that “states who have tried, succeeded and/or failed to expand Medicaid to include interconception care” would be a topic of use. Maternal mortality information also might be helpful. Dan appointed Kate to his “Map work group” which includes George and Vincenzo.
2.
Website update – Lisa noted that once you enter the members only section of the SMFM website there is no information on advocacy. Because time was short at the meeting, Katie said she would think about the types of information that could be included there, like the government relations agenda, report to the Board on activities (or the slide show), the advocacy guidebook and potential toolkit. This is the place where the one pagers prepared by Dana and
Melissa Rosenstein should be housed as well. Public documents, like letters to Congress and agencies or otherwise should continue to be uploaded to public facing website. Such review should also be a regular agenda item on the GR call.