We partnered with the Hospital Association of Southern California and Communities Lifting Communities to develop a nationwide current-state analysis tool and academy for birthing hospitals. This initiative enables organizations to move beyond “inherited narratives” to identify data-driven gaps and bridge the implementation gap in birth equity.

Hospital systems often lack a structured mechanism to assess their own strengths and weaknesses before launching equity improvement programs. Without a system-level lens, promising birth equity innovations remain isolated pilots rather than scalable, enterprise-wide standards. The challenge was to design a comprehensive diagnostic that could ground strategy in operational reality while addressing workforce readiness and clinical coordination.

Do Tank’s Role:

• Implementation Architect: Designing the operating conditions and assessment infrastructure required for coordinated system action.
• Strategy Discipline Partner: Building an “Academy” model that treats strategy as an active, always-on leadership capability rather than a static report.
• Human-Centered Transformation Lead: Grounding regional strategy in community-based research to ensure transformation is human-viable.

We developed the Organizational Birth Equity Assessment (OBEA), a 60-question diagnostic covering four critical domains: Data, Workforce, Clinical, and Structural. To move from diagnostic insight to coordinated action, we designed a nine-month virtual OBEA Academy utilizing a disciplined four-step change management pathway:

• Skill Development & Reflection: Teams analyze their assessment data to align institutional priorities with frontline needs.
• Prototyping & Leading Practices: Organizations use experimentation to reduce risk and accelerate learning as they test new care models.
• Community Research & Advocacy: We integrated an in-person research program to ensure frontline insights directly inform strategic investment and policy priorities.

This work provides a scalable roadmap for hospitals to transition from volume-based care to value-based expectations in maternal health. By providing execution infrastructure—including the OBEA diagnostic and the digital programming hub—we leave behind the long-term organizational capability needed to manage complex transformation. The project establishes a rigorous “Strategic North Star” for birth equity, ensuring organizations advance ideas only when conditions support real-world scale.

Real transformation requires a balance of mission and performance; we cannot improve outcomes without strengthening the underlying system architecture. This engagement proves that strategy is a learning system, not a static document, and must be grounded in the operational reality of the workforce and the community. By building readiness as a core variable, we help leaders move with pace and confidence toward a more equitable future for every birthing person.