Bridging the Gap Conference
2025 INAUGURAL CONFERENCE
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Bridging the Gap is an inter-professional educational conference focusing on the many barriers and complexity of healthcare delivery in rural Georgia.
This year, the conference will focus on rural maternity care. Rural obstetric care is a major health disparity in Georgia. Approximately 80% of maternal deaths are preventable with 22% of deaths occurred during pregnancy, 25% occurred on the day of delivery or within 7 days after, and 53% occurred between 7 days to 1 year after pregnancy.
Bridging the Gap: Caring for Rural Georgia Moms will address the Obstetric health care disparity by highlighting the gap in care, providing targeted education and skills training for preventable obstetric morbidity and mortality.
The conference will provide evidence-based education for improvement in measures of maternal health and teach technical skills for the interprofessional rural health care team. The target audience is any clinician, physician, nurse, respiratory therapist, pharmacist, and other members of the health care team who provide care for mothers or babies.
Keynote Speaker | Dr. Dean Burke
Dr. Dean Burke
CMO, Department of Community Health
The keynote speaker will be Dr. Dean Burke. Dr. Burke serves as the Chief Medical Officer for the Medical Assistance Plans for the Department of Community Health (DCH). In this role, Dr. Burke leads the department’s efforts related to health performance and quality reporting within the Medicaid and PeachCare for Kids® populations.
Dr. Burke served as the Chief Medical Officer for Memorial Hospital and Manor in Bainbridge, Ga. In addition, he has served as a state Senator for Senate district 11, representing Colquitt, Decatur, Early, Grady, Miller and Seminole counties along with portions of Mitchell and Thomas counties. During his service, he has served as Chairman of the Insurance and Labor Committee, Vice-Chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee and Ethics Committee, an Ex-Officio of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs, the Secretary of Appropriations, and was a member of the Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee and the Rules Committee.
He also served as the Chairman of the Community Health sub-committee. Dr. Burke graduated summa cum laude from Georgia Southwestern University and went on to graduate from the Medical College of Georgia.
He received his specialty training in obstetrics and gynecology at Mercer University
School of Medicine and practiced obstetrics and gynecology for 27 years. In addition,
Dr. Burke has also served as the Chairman of the Stratus Healthcare Governing Board
and is an advocate for improving healthcare outcomes in Georgia.