As hospitals and health systems continue to face ongoing maternity care cuts and closures in 2024, Chatham Maternity Care Center at Siler City, N.C.-based Chatham Hospital, part of Chapel Hill, N.C.-based UNC Health, is working hard to defy those odds.
"We're just able to really provide a different level of experience," Jeff Strickler, CEO of Chatham Hospital, told Becker's. "Some of the things that we hear from the families that choose to deliver with us, they talk about the experience they have being able to deliver close to home, and being able to have their extended family able to visit with them."
The hospital's maternity care center, which opened in September of 2020, initially had two goals: promoting healthcare access to the underrepresented population in the area and to expand its rural residency track for family medicine residents to train rural providers and keep them in the area.
"Staffing is so important because you have to have the talent to be able to maintain your operation," Eric Wolak, COO of Chatham Hospital, told Becker's.
While the hospital and its care center have seen success over the years, it has also not been a stranger to ongoing rural healthcare challenges.
"We have challenges with recruiting and retaining staff, labor costs, increase in supply costs, all those challenges you hear about in the healthcare industry," Mr. Strickler said.
After initially battling significant maternity nurse turnover rates, Mr. Strickler said UNC Health System helped the hospital's maternity program get back on its feet.
"We have a stable workforce and we have an increasing volume of patients, which is really helping to stabilize the program," he said.
Along with a strong support system, the hospital's maternity program has put significant time and attention into fine tuning its volume.
"When this program started I know we had moments where we had to have reduced operations for the maternity care center, but even when the maternity care center was open for large periods of time, we would go days, sometimes weeks without patients," Mr. Wolak said. "Having patients in the maternity care center is key to retaining maternity care center nurses. Maternity care center nurses do not want to float to other areas of the hospital."
In working carefully to recruit and retain nurses, that creates a pipeline for prenatal care and prenatal referral to bring to the maternity care center.
"There's opportunity there," Mr. Wolak said. "We are trying to increase foot traffic of expecting mothers to the maternity care center. When the Chatham County Board of Health performs labor classes or birthing classes, they do them on site at Chatham Hospital. When we do OB ultrasound, we do them at the Maternity Care Center, but we also are trying to grow our prenatal pipeline."
Patient environment has also been a major investment in the hospital's maternity program.
"The majority of our patients are Hispanic from an ethnicity standpoint, and one of our surgeons is also Hispanic," Mr. Strickler said. "From a standpoint of language and culture, just being able to connect with their care team in a different way, I think that's also been a real success for us."
Along with engaging in resources from local public health departments and clinics like primary care or OB-GYN, Mr. Wolak encouraged other health system and hospital leaders who have maternity care programs to invest in backup plans for their staffing models.
"Especially for a small program, one resignation can be very impactful," he said. "Whether that's hiring one full-time employee over or cross training specific nurses in your facility to provide maternity care, so that may require pulling them out of whatever staffing they're in and orienting them for three to six months in the maternity care center, but that will pay dividends in the future when you need to use their talent due to a resignation down the road."