Stacy Vandenput MARA CPM LM

MARA = Master of Archives & Records Administration
CPM = Certified Professional Midwife
LM = Licensed Midwife As a Graduate Student at San José State University I am pursuing the vision to create the framework for a national, trusted repository (archives) for midwifery information and midwifery artifacts of enduring cultural value. I am a 30-year veteran midwife, pivoting to a new role as a leader

in Midwifery Information Management (MIM) and Midwifery Information Governance. My passion is to find solutions for secure preservation of midwifery information assets and to teach midwives the principles of best-in-class records management practices to efficiently, ethically, and securely manage electronic and paper records, in compliance with legal requirements, and for the good of clients, midwives, and society. I believe that midwifery records, in addition to their purposes for client care, are a source of important cultural, humanistic, genealogical, and research value and I am sad to know that they have been lost, destroyed, and/or overlooked to the exclusion of midwives’ voices from the historic record, which ultimately played a role in the systematic elimination of midwives in previous eras. Because all people are born, the information held in these records is relevant to everyone, not just birthing people and newborns. I am interested in publishing my research, teaching midwives as well as information management professionals, and consulting in midwifery schools, professional conferences, and individual practices. I am planning for my obsolescence in this endeavor; I desire to write the textbooks for Midwifery Information Management, build the framework for Midwifery Archives—which will take years to achieve—and to train successors to carry out this mission beyond my lifetime. My vision is that midwifery artifacts of enduring value will have a secure home for millennia. I am keenly aware of the ethical implications of what is at stake, and I do not take it lightly that midwifery records contain vast amounts of Personally Identifying Information, Private Health Information, and sacred stories of the most intimate nature. That is what makes the endeavor a complex, long-term project with many considerations for stakeholders. I seek answers through my research, about how to legally, ethically, securely, and respectfully store such items until they can be transferred, redacted, and prepared for more public uses—in the case of client health records that would be 100 years after the death of the clients. Ultimately, I am excited to add my voice to the research and collaborate with stakeholders to build a vision, mission, and strategy that honors and upholds the midwifery story, which I think of as synonymous with the story of humanity.