CHICAGO – The 3,200 U. S. hospitals that offer obstetric care are being urged to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality by joining the National Partnership for Maternal Safety. The initial aim of the collaborative is to implement priority bundles for the three most common preventable causes of maternal death and severe morbidity: obstetric hemorrhage, severe hypertension in pregnancy, and peripartum venous thromboembolism.
Efforts by Dr. Elliott Main to turn maternal mortality reviews into quality improvement materials for preeclampsia and hemorrhage were instrumental in the efforts. In this exclusive video, Dr. Main, medical director of the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative and chair of obstetrics and gynecology at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, discusses how those efforts are beginning to take root nationally with Dr. Mary Elizabeth D’Alton, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University, New York, and Dr. Sarah J. Kilpatrick, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Cedars-Sinai, Los Angeles.
Dr. Main interviewed Dr. D’Alton and Dr. Kilpatrick at the 2014 ACOG annual clinical meeting after they presented the Edith Louise Potter Memorial Lecture titled "Maternal Morbidity and Mortality in the U.S.: Time to Wake Up and Take the Lead."