A cross-functional partnership to improve perinatal quality of care: California's preterm labor assessment toolkit

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Leslie Kowalewski and Kiko Malin, MPH, MSW. California Chapter, March of Dimes, 1050 Sansome Street, 4th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94111, 415 217-6366, lkowalewski@marchofdimes.com

A recent Prematurity Summit convened by the March of Dimes, California Chapter revealed that there were no uniform standards in California hospitals for the assessment of women presenting with the signs and symptoms of preterm labor. Recognizing that every pregnant woman should have the right to deliver in a facility appropriate to her risk level and that inconsistencies in practitioner knowledge can result in unnecessary hospitalization, increased costs and reduced quality of care, the Chapter provided a grant to a multi-disciplinary task force of health professionals to develop best practices for the diagnosis and triage of women with suspected preterm labor. Composed of representatives from all the relevant professional associations and major health systems in California, the task force established a baseline for current practice by examining existing preterm labor protocols and then developed an evidence-based clinical assessment toolkit. The toolkit accommodates the differing capacities of individual hospitals by providing two clinical algorithms, allowing hospitals to achieve a universal diagnostic standard that is within their financial means and staff capabilities. Because such a broad-based panel of leaders in the field succeeded in reaching consensus on this document, it has received national attention and has been endorsed by the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine. The toolkit is now being implemented in California hospitals by the Regional Perinatal Program of California and its impact will be evaluated by analyzing changes in practice as compared to baseline with the expectation that inequities in service delivery will be reduced and over-utilization of hospital resources minimized.

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to

1)Describe strategies for building a cross-functional, multidisciplinary task team to address a critical quality of care issue
2)Identify ways in which clinical research can be translated into improvements in systems that have broad public health implications
3)Discuss how to design, implement and evaluate a systems-based intervention to improve perinatal quality of care

Keywords: Quality of Care, Perinatal Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation

Innovations in Health Care Quality Improvement

The 134th Annual Meeting & Exposition (November 4-8, 2006) of APHA