East Toledo Family Center

Pathways

Pathways
Program

Pregnant women need early and regular prenatal care to help ensure their babies are born full term and at a healthy weight. Unfortunately, not all women have a support system to help care for themselves, manage stress and receive prenatal care. The Northwest Ohio Pathways HUB regional care coordination system launched in 2007 to combat infant mortality in Lucas County. Since then, low-income pregnant women have been connected to the medical care and social services needed to have full-term, healthy weight babies.
The Pathways HUB system relies on community health workers and other care coordinators employed by multiple clinical and community sites to assist those in need by working with them to develop a care plan and overcome barriers. Pathways HUB staff coordinates and trains community health workers and other care coordinators, as well as tracks intervention results.
The Pathways HUB expanded in 2015 to address diabetes, heart disease and other chronic conditions in Lucas County through a three-year Partnerships to Improve Community Health grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Additional expansions have followed elsewhere in northwest Ohio – including to Henry and Erie counties – and to other vulnerable Lucas County populations, such as low-income women of childbearing age and people with abnormal mammogram results.