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ARCHBOLD.ORG
•
WINTER 2016
9
ACROSS THE COUNTRY,
births
are being scheduled early for nonmedical
reasons. This creates significant risks for
babies and provides no medical benefit
to mothers. Even babies born just a few
weeks too soon can face serious health
challenges and are at risk for lifelong
disabilities, such as cerebral palsy, lung
problems, and vision and hearing loss.
In 2012, Grady General Hospital (GGH)
decided to take steps to improve the
health of the mothers and babies in the
hospital’s service area. We launched an ini-
tiative to eliminate early elective deliveries
(EEDs) and reduced the EED rate from over
50 percent to zero, a rate that has been
steady since the initiative began.
This summer, VHA Inc. named GGH’s
initiative a Leading Practice Blueprint, an
endorsed model which hospitals across
the country should adopt.
VHA Inc. is a national health care
network that works to improve perfor-
mance and efficiency in clinical, financial
and operational management.
“Our first step was to secure support
of our senior management team and the
health system risk management team
in order to implement better policies
on elective inductions and scheduled
C-sections, which resulted in adop-
tion of a hard-stop policy,” said Vicki
Jenkins, GGH OB Nurse Manager. “We
also empowered our nurses and other
front-line staff to talk with physicians if it
appeared that they were perhaps moving
forward with an early elective delivery.”
“Though our nursing staff was quick to
get on board with reducing our EED rates,
it took several steps to create a culture of
accountability that worked for everyone,”
said Crystal Ramm, GGH Administrator. “It
was truly a team effort.”
The secret of our success
“The key reason it worked was because
our physicians were truly invested in the
success of our hospital,” Ramm said. “When
presented with data and the ‘why’ behind
the hard-stop policy, our entire clinical
team recognized the need to reduce EEDs.”
According to GGH physician Ashley
Register, MD, Chief of Staff at Grady
General Hospital, what really drove phy-
sician buy-in was the education provided
and the peer review process for EEDs. “We
really just wanted to do what was best for
our patients and their new babies.”
Path to blueprint
This summer, a team of VHA experts
visited Cairo. GGH’s team collaborated
with VHA’s knowledge transfer team to
develop a Leading Practice Blueprint that
mapped out each step in the process.
“We were absolutely thrilled with our
results of having a zero percent EED rate
for over two years,” Ramm said. “We truly
feel we have hardwired this change into
practice and are excited to know that we
are providing the best and safest care
to all our OB patients. We hope other
hospitals can have the same success by
adapting our process.”
Expecting?
Expect top-of-the-line care at the GGH
Birthing Center. You’ll feel at ease knowing that highly
qualified health care professionals and the latest technology
are always close by. Contact us at
229.377.0276
.
REDUCING SCHEDULED EARLY BIRTHS
GradyGeneral
Hospital sets
national
standards!
Ashley Register, MD
Family Practice Physician
Cairo Medical Care
Physician Mark Hudson, DO, Chief of Obstetrics/Pediatrics,
and nurse Laura Pollock, RN, examine a newborn in the
nursery at Grady General Hospital.