Timothy Fisher, MD, obstetrician and gynecologist at Lebanon, N.H.-based Dartmouth-Hitchcock health system will conduct a three-year investigation into why nine rural New Hampshire hospitals have closed maternity care units.
The study is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in partnership with the Northern New England Perinatal Quality Improvement Network. Dr. Fisher and Sarah Benatar, PhD, and Stacey McMorrow, PhD, both from Washington D.C.-based Urban Institute with experience in studying patterns within women's healthcare, will do the study together.
It aims to address the effect of hospital-based maternity wards closing in New Hampshire and to see whether there are any reasonable strategies to counteract them.
"More than half of all U.S. counties do not have OB/GYN doctors to serve pregnant women," Dr. Fisher said. "It’s important that we have the resources in every county to support the care and education of women where they live."
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