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Health Areas » Hospital Research » Maternity Care Report

Maternity Care Report: Hospital Research

The HealthGrades Maternity Care Report (June 2007)

Introduction

Each year HealthGrades independently analyzes maternity care programs throughout the country to provide expectant women and their families comparative information about the quality differences among hospital maternity care programs. For an expectant mother, determining where to have the birth of a baby is an important and potentially difficult decision. For some women, this decision may be further complicated when faced with a choice between a vaginal delivery and cesarean (c-section) delivery for reasons of medical necessity or as a matter of personal choice.

To assist expectant mothers with these difficult decisions that affect their own health and the health of their unborn baby, HealthGrades has analyzed maternity care programs based on four clinical indicators that affect the outcome of the delivery for both mother and child. The four clinical indicators are:

Volume of vaginal and cesarean section (C-section) single live-born deliveries
Maternal complications for women undergoing vaginal or c-section delivery
Maternal complications among women undergoing c-section delivery as a matter of "personal choice" (no clinical reason identified per Gregory and Korst. Health Services Research 37:5; October 2002)
Neonatal mortality stratified into nine birth weight categories

To identify the best-performing hospital maternity care programs based on these indicators, HealthGrades analyzed over 12 million hospital delivery and neonate records from 2003 through 2005 in 1,549 hospitals. The best-performing hospitals are those hospitals that have combined rates of maternal complications and weightstratified neonatal mortality low enough within their respective peer group (Level II or higher Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) present or absent) to place them among the top 15 percent of hospitals evaluated. Hospitals that placed among the top 10 percent were named as recipients of the HealthGrades 2007/2008 Maternity Care Excellence Award^TM.

Source: The HealthGrades Maternity Care Report (June 2007)

Read full Health Grades report