 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Richard Baron, MD, Healthier Babies, Healthier Futures, Inc., 260 S. Broad Street, Suite 1800, Philadelphia, PA 19102, 215 985-2517, hbabies@phmc.org
Background: Healthier Babies was established in 1997 with funding received from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Center for Health Care Strategies, Inc. as part of their national Medicaid Managed Care Program. The HB program was undertaken in an effort to improve birth outcomes in the Medicaid population.
Objective: To determine the prevalence of risk factors and their effects in predicting poor birth outcomes in the Southeast Pennsylvania Medicaid population, and to assess the relationship between risks and outcomes for individual providers and determine which providers were performing better, given the risk level of their patient population.
Designs/Methods: Important risk factors were ascertained by examining the relationship between potential risk variables collected in a standardized prenatal encounter and data collection tool (UPEF) and Poor Birth Outcomes (PBOs.) 16 risk factors had significant impact on PBO and were used to create a weighted risk scale. For each provider, risk levels were compared to PBO levels.
Results: For the HealthChoices population in 2001, 9.8% were high-risk, 21.6% were medium-risk, and 68.6% were low-risk. For the high-risk group, 32.6% had PBO, whereas 19.9% of medium-risk and 11.9% of low-risk had PBO. Provider performance varies, where some providers had higher and some had lower PBOs within these risk levels.
Conclusion: HB/HF has found an effective methodology to measure prenatal high-risk and PBOs and to determine the level of risk and successful outcomes by prenatal care providers. Follow-up with providers can be used to determine effective prenatal care practices.
Learning Objectives:
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.