Leapfrog and Castlight Health analyzed data from the 2014 Leapfrog Hospital Survey of 1,501 U.S. hospitals to garner the Maternity Care Report. Five significant findings from the report are detailed below.
- The rate of early elective deliveries is on the decline for the fifth year in a row, and the national average hit the target rate of less than 5 percent.
- However, some hospitals still perform EEDs at a high rate: Nearly 9 percent report a rate twice as high as Leapfrog’s standard.
- Similarly, fewer hospitals (648) performed episiotomies 12 percent or less of the time to meet Leapfrog’s 2014 standard compared to 468 hospitals in 2012.
- But there is wide variation in the episiotomy data, as less than 3 percent of hospitals report an episiotomy rate of 1 percent or lower, but 15 percent still report rates of 20 percent or higher.
- High-risk deliveries should be performed in hospitals with onsite specialized neonatal intensive care units, but just 24.4 percent of hospitals met Leapfrog’s standard for high-risk deliveries last year. The organization’s standard is a hospital that delivers at least 50 very-low birth weight babies per year or that maintains a lower-than-average morbidity/mortality rate for very-low birth weight babies and ensures that 80 percent of mothers receive antenatal steroids prior to delivery.
More articles on maternity care quality:
Preventing the preventable – From 200,000 to 0 by 2020
100 hospitals with great women’s health programs | 2014
Many hospitals scrap New Year baby tradition
