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Sunday, September 26, 2010
Title: Prenatal Care: The Beginning of a Lifetime, A Pilot Program Designed to Improve Prenatal Care
Discipline: Women’s Health (WH), Professional Issues (PI), Childbearing (CB), Advanced Practice (AP)
Learning Objectives:
Submission Description:- Identify obstacles to providing prenatal care.
- Discuss components of a a standardized prenatal care template.
- Develop a plan to incorporate standardized prenatal care into your prenatal care practice.
Infant mortality has long been an indictor of overall community health. The most recent infant mortality rate for the United States is 6.6. The United States ranks 31st of developed nations in infant mortality, falling behind South Korea, Cuba, Czech Republic, and many others. Although infant mortality is a very complex problem, prenatal care is one variable that can influence the health of moms and babies and therefore improve infant mortality.
The current health care delivery system challenges providers of prenatal care. Providers are expected to do more with less; see more patients despite their greater needs. Evidenced-based care is critical to deliver in all disciplines of medicine and ACOG has recommended prenatal care guidelines that are the standard of care.
Even so, many standards of prenatal care get omitted due to not enough time, not enough people/resources, lack of patient understanding, inefficiency of office practice, and accidental mistakes. Omission of any aspect of care can be costly, whether because of patient dissatisfaction, poor maternal or fetal outcome, and/or a lawsuit.
Standardized prenatal care is essentially a protocol for the interdisciplinary team of prenatal care health care workers to “hard-wire” into practice. The goal is to improve quality of care and perinatal outcomes by reducing errors and allowing for succinct, efficient delivery of prenatal care.
Prenatal Care: The Beginning of a Lifetime was a pilot program designed to integrate a standardized template of prenatal care into everyday practice at 3 different practice sites. When nurses and doctors were approached about the program, they felt that this was already the care that they were delivering. However, chart reviews revealed that none of the charts met criteria for the standardized model. Taking into account the obstacles providers face with time, personnel, and finances, the goal was to implement standardized prenatal care as efficiently and cost effectively as possible. One hundred and fifty patients were enrolled in the program, in three different groups varying with the level of involvement of the coordinator. The coordinator met with each participant to explain the pilot program and discuss a notebook of information about pregnancy. The coordinator was available to assist providers with whatever care needs presented, including referral to appropriate community resources of all participants. Clinic staff and providers were surveyed to assess their knowledge about and satisfaction with the intervention.
A program such as Prenatal Care: The Beginning of a Lifetime is a culture change and nurses are key to coordinating this effort for both the patients and the providers. This paper will discuss the implementation of the program and offer suggestions to nurses in outpatient clinics on ways to implement standardized prenatal care in institutions.
The current health care delivery system challenges providers of prenatal care. Providers are expected to do more with less; see more patients despite their greater needs. Evidenced-based care is critical to deliver in all disciplines of medicine and ACOG has recommended prenatal care guidelines that are the standard of care.
Even so, many standards of prenatal care get omitted due to not enough time, not enough people/resources, lack of patient understanding, inefficiency of office practice, and accidental mistakes. Omission of any aspect of care can be costly, whether because of patient dissatisfaction, poor maternal or fetal outcome, and/or a lawsuit.
Standardized prenatal care is essentially a protocol for the interdisciplinary team of prenatal care health care workers to “hard-wire” into practice. The goal is to improve quality of care and perinatal outcomes by reducing errors and allowing for succinct, efficient delivery of prenatal care.
Prenatal Care: The Beginning of a Lifetime was a pilot program designed to integrate a standardized template of prenatal care into everyday practice at 3 different practice sites. When nurses and doctors were approached about the program, they felt that this was already the care that they were delivering. However, chart reviews revealed that none of the charts met criteria for the standardized model. Taking into account the obstacles providers face with time, personnel, and finances, the goal was to implement standardized prenatal care as efficiently and cost effectively as possible. One hundred and fifty patients were enrolled in the program, in three different groups varying with the level of involvement of the coordinator. The coordinator met with each participant to explain the pilot program and discuss a notebook of information about pregnancy. The coordinator was available to assist providers with whatever care needs presented, including referral to appropriate community resources of all participants. Clinic staff and providers were surveyed to assess their knowledge about and satisfaction with the intervention.
A program such as Prenatal Care: The Beginning of a Lifetime is a culture change and nurses are key to coordinating this effort for both the patients and the providers. This paper will discuss the implementation of the program and offer suggestions to nurses in outpatient clinics on ways to implement standardized prenatal care in institutions.
