"By providing us with critical resources to help grow our program, CHCF has established itself as a true advocate for women and babies in California."
-Jeffrey Gould, MD, MPH
In an alarming trend, maternal outcomes in California have worsened significantly over the past decade. Mortality, an important indicator of population health and health care quality in general, has more than doubled, and morbidity (injury) rates are also climbing. A crucial first step to improving quality of maternal care is the development of clear measures to better track these outcomes.
The California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC), a multi-stakeholder initiative which includes participation by the Stanford School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, was established to review and distill maternal care outcomes data into specific quality and safety improvements. Recommendations are then disseminated to health care providers statewide.
To carry out their work, the CMQCC is currently laying the foundation for a new California Maternal Data Center (CMDC). The CMDC is informed by the California Pregnancy-Associated Mortality Review and ongoing work in statewide quality improvement collaboratives. It will enable CMQCC to generate timely, meaningful measures for quality improvement, patient decision-making, and public reporting. Initial planning for the CMDC was made possible thanks to two recent grants from the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF).
“Our partnership with CHCF has enabled us to set a new standard in the national dialogue on promising quality improvement measures in maternity care,” explains Jeffrey Gould, MD, MPH, principal investigator of CMQCC and the Robert L. Hess Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford. “By providing us with critical resources to help grow our program, CHCF has established itself as a true advocate for women and babies in California.”
“Given the issues facing maternity care in the state and nationally, we’re pleased to partner with the CMQCC to create useful resources and information,” says Stephanie Teleki, senior program officer at CHCF. “Our hope is that these projects will spur thoughtful action, ultimately encouraging providers to improve care and help patients to make more informed choices.”
CHCF, based in Oakland, works as a catalyst for better health care by promoting transparency and accountability in California’s health care system.