AHRQ Safety Program for Perinatal Care

This is an ongoing project to improve patient safety, team communication, and quality of care for mothers and their newborns within labor and delivery units.

About This Project

The AHRQ Safety Program for Perinatal Care is designed to help hospitals and clinicians reduce complications during and after childbirth, making care safer for both mothers and babies.

The program builds on knowledge gained from AHRQ's work on the Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP) and the TeamSTEPPS® teamwork system, and from findings from AHRQ's patient safety and medical liability initiative demonstration grants.

As part of the program, participating labor and delivery hospital units will receive support to implement the following improvements:

Fostering a culture of teamwork and communication.
Establishing a program of in situ simulation.
Implementing customizable perinatal safety bundles related to—
- Safe medication administration.
- Monitoring for perinatal safety.
- Rapid response.
- Safe care in focused areas, including obstetric hemorrhage, shoulder dystocia, cord prolapse, and cesarean section.

Project participants receive Webinar-based training and technical assistance, as well as evaluation support for practice improvement. The project is expected to conclude in late spring 2016. An implementation toolkit will then be developed and made available for others to use.