Childbirth Connections-Transforming Maternity Care Project...

Childbirth Connection’s Transforming Maternity Care project collaborated with industry leaders and stakeholders to set a vision for a “high quality-high value maternity care system.”  In order to implement this vision workgroups were created to establish a Blueprint for Action.  An Action Community has been created to bring together individuals, birth advocates, care-providers, and consumer groups

This 2020 Vision was generated in response to “poor national performance on widely recognized maternal and newborn indicators, gaps between practice patterns and lessons from best scientific evidence, and unwarranted costs. It advances the core health care reform aims of improved quality and value within a major sector of the health care system.”  Specifically some of the issues that inspired this project are; procedure-intensive, costly care for a largely healthy population, overuse of many practices, associated with harm and waste, underuse of beneficial practices that would improve outcomes, many indicators that have been moving in the wrong direction and a poor showing in comparison with many other nations.

The Vision Team included experts from a wide range of disciplines including, childbirth education, community/public health, consumer and employer advocacy, family medicine, general obstetrics and gynecology, health economics, health policy, health system administration, labor support, maternal-fetal medicine, maternity nursing, nurse-midwifery, and quality and measurement research in health care.  The team comprised of individuals like Penny Simkin who are hoping to;  identify the optimal aims and attributes of the U.S. maternity care system, specify the most effective ways to realize those aims and attributes, and to move expeditiously to undertake the action steps.

On a personal level I just can’t stop reading about this project because I am so inspired by the mission and the individuals involved. I have included some information at the end of this article for further reading and I encourage you to do so. You may find it a bit overwhelming-its is a big undertaking and there has been quite a bit to report but if you are a pregnant woman, a birth junkie or a care-provider it is an essential read.  There are opportunities for us to get involved so let’s do all we can to implement this change-imagine being a part of this vision.  I just can’t get enough!

For more information and to find out how to get involved:

http://www.childbirthconnection.org/article.asp?ck=10627

http://www.childbirthconnection.org/pdfs/transforming-maternity-care-diagram.pdf

http://www.childbirthconnection.org/article.asp?ClickedLink=924&ck=10576&area=2