"Since 2002, Alpha Maxx Healthcare, Inc (AMAXX) has enjoyed a collaborative relationship with the Shelby County healthcare commmunity including the University of Tennessee's Health Science Center. Our joint focus areas were in health management for a high risk OB population and in enhancing awareness of the importance of the period between zero and eight for optimal brain development in children. We believe that efforts in these focus areas have contributed to the reduction of infant mortality and prematurity in Memphis and Shelby County.
I have interacted with Chuck Green, the President of AMAXX and many of his social workers and nurses' since 2001. I was the Dean of the UT Medical School when I first met him as he sought my advice and collaboration. As dean I was also the head of our physician clinical practice plan, UTMG, which interacted with Alpha Maxx while they were contracted with our owned TNCare product, TLC. After leaving UT and going to The Urban Child Institute (UCI), I have kept in touch with Chuck and his staff through various seminars and initiatives sponsored by UCI, Alpha Maxx and other organiztions with similar interests. AMAXX has always been professionally active in maximizing our efforts to have healthy newborns with proper parenting education in support of optimizing early brain development.
Memphis and Shelby County have had the highest risk for preterm births and low and very low birth weights in the State of Tennessee for many years. The racial and ethnic disparities in perinatal health are striking. AMAXX and its partners have worked hard to reduce these disparities and I am happy to say that the infant mortality rate has shown a significant reduction over the past seven years. It is still too high and the racial disparity still exists but things are headed in the right direction.
The Medicaid population in Memphis and Shelby County has specific medical and psychosocial factors that contribute to a high level of infant mortality. These high risk factors include diabetes, chronic hypertension, preeclampsia and preterm labor. This demographic is composed mainly of patients younger than 21 and older than 34 years of age. Working together, Alpha Maxx Healthcare, Inc. and other organizations have had a positive impact on the quality of life of these patients through the stabilization or minimalization of risk factors.. Working together with other community resources, Alpha Maxx's unrelenting efforts obviously contributed to our current improvements in child and maternal health.
It is extremely important to our community that we continue to improve quality of life issues for the large number of newborns and moms in Memphis and Shelby County. Based on the experience here I am pleased to recommend that AMAXX be considered as a partner that contributes to providing a meaningful service to your Missouri Community just as they have served ours."
Henry G. Herrod, MD
Senior Fellow, The Urban Child Institute
Emeritus Professor and Dean, UTHSC COM