Blueprint for Advancing High-Value Maternity Care Through Physiologic Childbearing.

The Blueprint for Advancing High-Value Maternity Care Through Physiologic Childbearing charts an efficient pathway to a maternity care system that reliably enables all women and newborns to experience healthy physiologic processes around the time of birth, to the extent possible given their health needs and informed preferences. The authors are members of a multistakeholder, multidisciplinary National Advisory Council that collaborated to develop this document. This approach preventively addresses troubling trends in maternal and newborn outcomes and persistent racial and other disparities by mobilizing innate capacities for healthy childbearing processes and limiting use of consequential interventions. It provides more appropriate care to healthier, lower-risk women and newborns who often receive more specialized care, though such care may not be needed and may cause unintended harm. It also offers opportunities to improve the care, experience and outcomes of women with health challenges by fostering healthy perinatal physiologic processes whenever safely possible.

A proposal for the development of national certification standards for patient decision aids in the US.

Efforts to implement the use of patient decision aids to stimulate shared decision making are gaining prominence. Patient decision aids have been designed to help patients participate in making specific choices among health care options. Because these tools clearly influence decisions, poor quality, inaccurate or unbalanced presentations or misleading tools are a risk to patients. As payer interest in these tools increases, so does the risk that patients are harmed by the use of tools that are described as patient decision aids yet fail to meet established standards. To address this problem, the National Quality Forum (NQF) in the USA convened a multi-stakeholder expert panel in 2016 to propose national standards for a patient decision aid certification process. In 2017, NQF established an Action Team to foster shared decision making, and to call for a national certification process as one recommendation among others to stimulate improvement. A persistent barrier to the setup of a national patient decision aids certification process is the lack of a sustainable financial model to support the work.

National Partnership for Maternal Safety: Consensus Bundle on Safe Reduction of Primary Cesarean Births-Supporting Intended Vaginal Births.

Cesarean births and associated morbidity and mortality have reached near epidemic proportions. The National Partnership for Maternal Safety under the guidance of the Council on Patient Safety in Women's Health Care responded by developing a patient safety bundle to reduce the number of primary cesarean births. Safety bundles outline critical practices to implement in every maternity unit. This National Partnership for Maternity Safety bundle, as with other bundles, is organized into four domains: Readiness, Recognition and Prevention, Response, and Reporting and Systems Learning. Bundle components may be adapted to individual facilities, but standardization within an institution is advised. Evidence-based resources and recommendations are provided to assist implementation.

National Partnership for Maternal Safety: Consensus Bundle on Safe Reduction of Primary Cesarean Births-Supporting Intended Vaginal Births.

Cesarean births and associated morbidity and mortality have reached near epidemic proportions. The National Partnership for Maternal Safety under the guidance of the Council on Patient Safety in Women's Health Care responded by developing a patient safety bundle to reduce the number of primary cesarean births. Safety bundles outline critical practices to implement in every maternity unit. This National Partnership for Maternity Safety bundle, as with other bundles, is organized into four domains: Readiness, Recognition and Prevention, Response, and Reporting and Systems Learning. Bundle components may be adapted to individual facilities, but standardization within an institution is advised. Evidence-based resources and recommendations are provided to assist implementation.

National Partnership for Maternal Safety: Consensus Bundle on Safe Reduction of Primary Cesarean Births- Supporting Intended Vaginal Births.

Cesarean births and associated morbidity and mortality have reached near epidemic proportions. The National Partnership for Maternal Safety under the guidance of the Council on Patient Safety in Women's Health Care responded by developing a patient safety bundle to reduce the number of primary cesarean births. Safety bundles outline critical practices to implement in every maternity unit. This National Partnership for Maternity Safety bundle, as with other bundles, is organized into four domains: Readiness, Recognition and Prevention, Response, and Reporting and Systems Learning. Bundle components may be adapted to individual facilities, but standardization within an institution is advised. Evidence-based resources and recommendations are provided to assist implementation.

Overdue: Medicaid and Private Insurance Coverage of Doula Care to Strengthen Maternal and Infant Health.

Continuous labor support by a trained doula has proven benefits and is recognized as an effective strategy to improve maternal and infant health, enhance engagement and satisfaction with maternity care, and reduce spending. Community-based doula programs can also reduce or eliminate health disparities by providing support to women most at risk for poor outcomes. The most effective way to increase use of this evidence-based service would be to eliminate cost barriers. Key recommendations identify numerous pathways to pursue Medicaid and private insurance coverage of doula care. This comprehensive and up-to-date inventory of reimbursement options provides the doula, childbirth, and quality communities, as well as policy makers, with many approaches to increasing access to this high-value form of care.

Major Survey Findings of Listening to Mothers(SM) III: Pregnancy and Birth: Report of the Third National U.S. Survey of Women's Childbearing Experiences.

To understand the experiences and views of childbearing women in the United States and trends over time, Childbirth Connection carried out the third national Listening to Mothers survey among 2,400 women who gave birth in U.S. hospitals to a single baby from mid-2011 to mid-2012 and could participate in English. Harris Interactive conducted the survey using a validated methodology that includes data weighting to ensure that results closely reflect the target population. Results of the initial survey describe experiences from before pregnancy through the early postpartum period, and were reported in Listening to Mothers III: Pregnancy and Birth. A follow-up survey directed to the same participants explored postpartum experiences, attitudes about maternity care, and some additional pregnancy and birth items.

Major Survey Findings of Listening to Mothers(SM) III: New Mothers Speak Out: Report of National Surveys of Women's Childbearing ExperiencesConducted October-December 2012 and January-April 2013.

To understand the experiences and views of childbearing women in the United States and trends over time, Childbirth Connection carried out the third national Listening to Mothers survey among 2,400 women who gave birth in U.S. hospitals to a single baby from mid-2011 to mid-2012 and could participate in English. A follow-up survey directed to the same participants explored postpartum experiences, in depth and well into the second year after birth; views about maternity care; and some additional pregnancy and birth items. Harris Interactive conducted the surveys using a validated methodology that includes data weighting to ensure that results closely reflect the target population. The follow-up survey was reported in Listening to Mothers III: New Mothers Speak Out.

Maternity care and liability: least promising policy strategies for improvement.

BACKGROUND: The present liability system is not serving well childbearing women and newborns, maternity care clinicians, or those who pay for maternity care. Examination of evidence about the impact of this system on maternity care led us to identify seven aims for a high-functioning liability system in this clinical context. Herein, we identify policy strategies that are unlikely to meet the proposed criteria and contribute to needed improvements. A companion paper considers more promising strategies. METHODS: We considered whether 25 strategies that have been used or proposed for improvement have met or could meet the seven aims. We used a best available evidence approach and drew on more recent empirical legal studies and health services research about maternity care and liability, when available, and considered other studies when unavailable. FINDINGS: Fifteen strategies seem to have little potential to improve liability matters in maternity care. Despite support for capping non-economic damages, a series of studies has found a modest impact at best on maternity care. Maternity-specific studies also do not lend support to tort reforms collectively and several other specific tort reforms. Some tort alternative and liability insurance reform strategies have narrow aims and are not policy priorities. CONCLUSIONS: Caps on non-economic damages and other tort reforms have narrow aims and have been marginally effective at best in the context of maternity care. Several other possible reforms similarly are not promising. Continued focus on these strategies is unlikely to result in the high-performing liability system that maternity care stakeholders need.

Maternity care and liability: most promising policy strategies for improvement.

BACKGROUND: The present liability system is not serving well childbearing women and newborns, maternity care clinicians, or maternity care payers. Examination of evidence about the impact of this system on maternity care led us to identify seven aims for a high-functioning liability system in this clinical context. Herein, we identify policy strategies that are most likely to meet these aims and contribute to needed improvements. A companion paper considers strategies that hold little promise. METHODS: We considered whether 25 strategies that have been used or proposed for improvement have met or could meet the seven aims. We used a best available evidence approach and drew on more recent empirical legal studies and health services research about maternity care and liability when available, and considered other studies when unavailable. FINDINGS: Ten strategies seem to have potential to improve liability matters in maternity care across multiple aims. The most promising strategy--implementing rigorous maternity care quality improvement (QI) programs--has led to better quality and outcomes of care, and impressive declines in liability claims, payouts, and premium levels. CONCLUSIONS: A number of promising strategies warrant demonstration and evaluation at the level of states, health systems, or other appropriate entities. Rigorous QI programs have a growing track record of contributing to diverse aims of a high-functioning liability system and seem to be a win-win-win prevention strategy for childbearing families, maternity care providers, and payers. Effective strategies are also needed to assist families when women and newborns are injured.

Maternity care and liability: pressing problems, substantive solutions.

BACKGROUND: This paper summarizes a new report presenting the best available research about the impact of the liability environment on maternity care, and policy options for improving this environment. Improved understanding of these matters can help to transcend polarized discourse and guide policy intervention. METHODS: We used a best available evidence approach and drew on more recent empirical legal studies and health services research about maternity care and liability when available, and considered other studies when unavailable. FINDINGS: The best available research does not support a series of widely held beliefs about maternity care and liability, including the economic impact of liability insurance premiums on maternity care clinicians, the existence of extensive defensive maternity care practice, and the impact of limiting the size of awards for non-economic damages in a malpractice lawsuit. In the practice of an average maternity caregiver, negligent injury of mothers and newborns seems to occur more frequently than any claim and far more frequently than a payout or trial. Many important gaps in knowledge relating to maternity care and liability remain. Some improvement strategies are likely to be more effective than others. CONCLUSIONS: Empirical research does not support many widely held beliefs about maternity care and liability. The liability system does not currently serve well childbearing women and newborns, maternity care clinicians, or those who pay for maternity care. A number of promising strategies might lead to a higher functioning liability system, whereas others are unlikely to contribute to needed improvements.

Blueprint for action: steps toward a high-quality, high-value maternity care system.

Childbirth Connection hosted a 90th Anniversary national policy symposium, Transforming Maternity Care: A High Value Proposition, on April 3, 2009, in Washington, DC. Over 100 leaders from across the range of stakeholder perspectives were actively engaged in the symposium work to improve the quality and value of U.S. maternity care through broad system improvement. A multi-disciplinary symposium steering committee guided the strategy from its inception and contributed to every phase of the project. The "Blueprint for Action: Steps Toward a High Quality, High Value Maternity Care System", issued by the Transforming Maternity Care Symposium Steering Committee, answers the fundamental question, "Who needs to do what, to, for, and with whom to improve the quality of maternity care over the next five years?" Five stakeholder workgroups collaborated to propose actionable strategies in 11 critical focus areas for moving expeditiously toward the realization of the long term "2020 Vision for a High Quality, High Value Maternity Care System", also published in this issue. Following the symposium these workgroup reports and recommendations were synthesized into the current blueprint. For each critical focus area, the "Blueprint for Action" presents a brief problem statement, a set of system goals for improvement in that area, and major recommendations with proposed action steps to achieve them. This process created a clear sightline to action that if enacted could improve the structure, process, experiences of care, and outcomes of the maternity care system in ways that when anchored in the culture can indeed transform maternity care.

Transforming maternity care: a high-value proposition: summary of Childbirth Connection 90th Anniversary Symposium proceedings.

On April 3, 2009, in Washington, DC, close to 250 participants gathered at the invitation of Childbirth Connection, in partnership with the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health, at a symposium entitled Transforming Maternity Care: A High-Value Proposition, to share concrete solutions intended to improve the state of the U.S. maternity care system. This paper summarizes the reports that were presented at the symposium, along with responses to each report prepared by invited panelists, and audience comments that were made throughout the event. Papers presented include five stakeholder workgroup reports that will be published online on the Childbirth Connection website, as well as the "2020 Vision for a High-Quality, High-Value Maternity Care System", and "The Role of Medicaid in Promoting Access to High-Quality, High-Value Maternity Care,"" both of which are published in full in the current issue. Participating in the symposium were consumers and advocates, maternity care clinicians and educators, hospital and health system administrators, measurement and quality experts, liability insurers, and private and public maternity care payors and purchasers, as well as policy makers, legislators, journalists and other stakeholders.

Steps toward innovative childbirth education: selected strategies from the blueprint for action.

To mark the 50th anniversary of Lamaze International, Childbirth Connection celebrates landmark accomplishments in education for childbearing women and families, and takes stock of the changing educational needs and preferences of current childbearing families in looking toward the future. Childbirth Connection's multi-year, multi-stakeholder Transforming Maternity Care initiative resulted in two landmark reports: 2020 Vision for a High-Quality, High-Value Maternity Care System and Blueprint for Action: Steps Toward a High-Quality, High-Value Maternity Care System. Selected recommendations of greatest relevance to the field of childbirth education are discussed, and the new Transforming Maternity Care Partnership is introduced.

Doing the right thing for women and babies: policy initiatives to improve maternity care quality and value.

When defined within the context of maternity care, the Institute of Medicine's six aims for health-care quality improvement provide a framework for Childbirth Connection's Maternity Quality Matters Initiative, a multipronged program agenda intended to foster a maternity care system that delivers care of the highest quality and value in order to achieve optimal health outcomes and experiences for mothers and babies. These aims also provide childbirth educators and others in the maternity care community with an ethical framework for efforts to serve childbearing women and families and ensure the best outcomes for women, babies, and families.