An interprofessional intern team working in partnership with Aspirus St. Luke’s in Duluth is helping strengthen maternal health across Minnesota through the development of a statewide doula toolkit—one that will soon be shared broadly through the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH).
The project brings together community expertise, clinical practice, and student innovation to support birthing hospitals and organizations in implementing effective, adaptable doula programs.
Sharing lessons learned to strengthen maternal care
The primary objective of the toolkit is to share what Aspirus St. Luke’s has learned since launching its Plus One Doula Program—what has worked well, what could be improved, and how other communities can adapt the model to meet their own needs.
“From the beginning, we wanted this toolkit to be shareable, adaptable, and flexible,” says Mallory Cummings, MHA, RN, PHN, project manager and doula coordinator for Aspirus Duluth. “Our hope is that Minnesota birth workers and professionals can learn from what we’ve accomplished and feel inspired to consider what doulas could do in their own communities, hospitals, or regions.”
The Plus One Doula Program was created to address gaps in maternal care by integrating community-based doulas into the clinical care team. Doulas provide continuous, non-clinical support to birthing people and their families—often beginning in the home and community long before a hospital admission. The program reflects growing evidence that doula care can improve perinatal outcomes and reduce disparities, particularly for populations that have been historically underserved.
Once finalized, the toolkit will be distributed through established professional partnerships with the Minnesota Perinatal Quality Collaborative and MDH, making it accessible statewide. Cummings emphasized that this work would not be possible without the Bush Foundation, through which the Aspirus St. Luke’s Maternal Child Health service line received a Community Innovation Grant.
Learning across professions—and settings
For interns Laura Guck and Clare Lechner, the project offered a rare opportunity to examine how a community-driven initiative is built, sustained, and integrated within a large health system.
“What stood out early on was how much of the work of keeping birthing people and their families safe happens outside of hospital walls,” Cummings says. “That was an ‘aha’ moment—recognizing how doulas fill that gap while still working cohesively with medical providers. Laura and Clare’s curiosity, motivation, and ability to ask meaningful questions early on truly set them apart.”
Guck, who is pursuing a Doctor of Physical Therapy degree, said the experience reshaped how she thinks about collaboration within health systems.
“This experience showed me how important it is to build infrastructure that makes interprofessional collaboration easier rather than harder,” she says. “Seeing a community-driven initiative successfully integrated into a large health system reinforced that meaningful systemic change often starts with one provider recognizing a need—and grows through collaboration across departments and professions.”
One of Guck’s most meaningful experiences was connecting directly with local birth workers.
Lechner, a graduate student in the Master of Nursing program, valued the opportunity to see how ideas move from concept to implementation.
“This internship gave me a ‘look under the hood’ at how health care professionals identify a community need, secure funding, build stakeholder buy-in, and execute a program to improve maternal health outcomes,” she says. “I’ll carry these lessons with me as I begin my career and look for ways to apply my clinical knowledge to improve health care systems.”
Lechner also appreciated the balance between personal stories and evidence-based research.
Preparing future leaders in collaborative care
As Guck and Lechner move forward in their graduate training and professional careers, Cummings hopes the lessons of the internship stay with them.
“They’ve demonstrated a high level of maturity, internal motivation, and dedication,” she says. “Most importantly, they’ve seen firsthand that collaboration is the key to providing truly wraparound care for birthing people and their families.”
Through partnerships like this one, the Interprofessional Internship Program continues to support experiential learning that advances health equity, strengthens community-engaged care, and prepares the next generation of health professionals to work across disciplines to meet complex health needs.
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