Patient Safety: The Leapfrog Group Releases Latest Report on Maternity Care

Martina

The Leapfrog Group released its 2018 Maternity Care Report in partnership with Castlight Health. Among other findings analyzed from the 2017 Leapfrog Hospital Survey, the report shows that the average rate of episiotomies, an incision made in the perineum (birth canal) during childbirth, across all reporting hospitals declined from 9.6 percent in 2016 to 7.8 percent in 2017, their lowest rate since Leapfrog began collecting data and publicly reporting on this metric. Nonetheless, the use of these usually unnecessary incisions remains well above Leapfrog’s standard, determined by its Maternity Care Expert Panel, of 5 percent or less. The report shows no such improvement in the rate of C-sections. According to the data, two in five reporting hospitals fully met Leapfrog’s standard for NTSV C-sections of 23.9 percent or less. This represents no improvement, and instead a slight decline in performance since the 2016 Leapfrog Hospital Survey.

Read full report: http://www.leapfroggroup.org/sites/default/files/Files/leapfrog_castlight_maternity_care_2018%20report.pdf