Samaritan Lauded for Safe, Quality Care for Delivering Mothers
Published on: April 26, 2022
WATERTOWN, NY — Samaritan Medical Center is proud to announce it has received the New York State Obstetric Hemorrhage Project’s 2021 Quality Improvement Award. This award recognizes the hospital’s dedicated work to meet the project’s goal of assessing at least 85% of patients for risk of obstetric hemorrhage, both on admission to the birth hospitalization and during the postpartum period.
Obstetric hemorrhage is one of the top three most common causes of maternal death, yet it is also known to be one of the most preventable causes of maternal mortality.
As a NYS Obstetric Hemorrhage Project participant, Samaritan Medical Center has worked to: improve readiness to respond to an obstetric hemorrhage by implementing standardized policies and procedures; develop rapid response teams; improve recognition of obstetric hemorrhage by performing ongoing quantification of blood loss; improve response to hemorrhage by performing regular on-site, multidisciplinary hemorrhage drills; and improve reporting of obstetric hemorrhage by using standardized definitions and consistent coding.
“Samaritan is dedicated to providing safe, high-quality care to all of its patients, especially the young families, newborns and children who we see at our Car-Freshner Center for Women and Children,” said Thomas Carman, President and CEO of Samaritan. “We are honored to receive this award, and incredibly proud of our staff and their work to assess and reduce obstetric hemorrhage risk.”
The NYS Obstetric Hemorrhage Project was launched in November 2017 by the New York State Perinatal Quality Collaborative (NYSPQC) — an initiative of the state Department of Health — in collaboration with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists District II, Healthcare Association of NYS and Greater New York Hospital Association. NYSPQC empowers birthing hospitals across New York State to provide the best, safest and most equitable care for pregnant, birthing and postpartum people and their infants. Since September 2010, the NYSPQC has been collaborating with birthing facilities to improve and ensure the quality of obstetrical care, and infant health and safety.
Over the course of the project, which concluded in June 2021, Samaritan Medical Center had the opportunity to: learn from faculty and colleagues; receive individual coaching; gather new knowledge on the subject matter and process improvement; share experiences and collaborate on improvement plans; and create strategies to overcome improvement barriers.
Due to Samaritan’s efforts, along with other participating hospitals, the NYS Obstetric Hemorrhage Project met its goal of reducing maternal morbidity and mortality associated with obstetric hemorrhage in New York State. In November 2018, the project goal of increasing hemorrhage risk assessment on admission to 85% of pregnant people was met. On-admission hemorrhage risk assessment improved 21% from baseline, and postpartum hemorrhage risk assessment improved 97% from baseline.