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Problem: Currently <1% of Australian women give birth at home., Background: In Australia there are very few options for women to access public funded homebirth., Aim: We aimed to use geo-mapping to identify the number of women eligible for homebirth in Victoria, based on the criteria of uncomplicated pregnancies and residing within 15-25kms of suitable maternity services, to plan future maternity care options., Methods: Retrospective study of births between 2015 and 2017 in Victoria, Australia. All women who were identified as having a low risk pregnancy at the beginning of pregnancy were included. The number of women within 15 and 25km of a suitable Victorian public maternity hospital and catchment boundaries around each hospital were determined., Findings: Between 2015 and 2017, 126,830 low risk women gave birth in Victoria, of whom half live within 25km of seven Victorian hospitals. Currently, 2% of suitable women who live close to the current public homebirth models accessed them., Discussion: We present a method to inform the expansion of maternity service options using Victoria as an example. On the basis of the maximum number of low risk women living close by, we have also identified the Victorian maternity services that would be most suitable for creation of public homebirth or low risk continuity of midwifery models., Conclusion: This approach could can be used to plan other maternity care services., (Copyright © 2021 Australian College of Midwives. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Stillbirth and preterm birth (PTB) remain two of the most important, unresolved challenges in modern pregnancy care. Approximately 10% of all births are preterm with nearly one million children dying each year due to PTB. It remains the most common cause of death among children under five years of age. The numbers for stillbirth are no less shocking with 2.6 million babies stillborn each year. With minimal impact on the rate of these adverse birth outcomes over the past decade there is an urgent need to identify more effective interventions to tackle these problems. In this retrospective cohort study, we used whole-of-population data, to determine if maternal immunization during pregnancy against influenza and/or pertussis, is associated with a lower risk of PTB, delivering a small-for-gestational age (SGA) infant, developing preeclampsia or stillbirth. Women with a singleton pregnancy at 28 or more weeks' gestation delivering in Victoria, Australia from July 2015 to December 2018 were included in the analysis. Log-binomial regression was used to measure the relationship between vaccination during pregnancy against influenza and against pertussis, with preterm birth, SGA, preeclampsia and stillbirth. Variables included in the adjusted model were maternal age, body mass index, first or subsequent birth, maternal Indigenous status, socio-economic quintile, smoking, public or private maternity care and metropolitan or rural location of the hospital. Women who received influenza vaccine were 75% less likely to have a stillbirth (aRR 025; 95% CI 0.20, 0.31), and 31% less likely to birth <37 weeks (aRR 0.69; 95% CI 0.66, 0.72). Women who received pertussis vaccine were 77% less likely to have a stillbirth (aOR 0.23; 95% CI 0.18, 0.28) and 32% less likely to birth <37 weeks gestation (aRR 0.68; 95% CI 0.66, 0.71). Vaccination also reduced the odds of small for gestational age by 13% and reduced the odds of pre-eclampsia when restricted to primiparous women. This association was seen over four different influenza seasons and independent of the time of year suggesting that any protective effect on obstetric outcomes afforded by maternal vaccination may not be due to a pathogen-specific response but rather due to pathogen-agnostic immune-modulatory effects., Competing Interests: EW is a recipient of a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Program Grant (APP1113902) and is a chief investigator on the NHMRC Stillbirth Centre for Research Excellence (APP1116640). The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Giles, Davey and Wallace.)

Background: In July 2017, Victoria's largest maternity service implemented a new clinical practice guideline to reduce the rates of term stillbirth in women of South Asian background., Aim: To capture the views and experiences of clinical staff following the implementation of the new clinical guideline., Methods: Cross sectional survey of clinical staff providing maternity care in August 2018, 12 months post implementation. Staff were asked to provide their agreement with ten statements assessing: perceived need for the guideline, implementation processes, guideline clarity, and clinical application. Open-ended questions provided opportunities to express concerns and offer suggestions for improvement. The frequency of responses to each question were tabulated. Open ended responses were grouped together to identify themes., Findings: A total of 120 staff completed the survey, most (n=89, 74%) of whom were midwives. Most staff thought the rationale (n=95, 79%), the criteria for whom they applied (83%, n=99), and the procedures and instructions within the guideline were clear (74%, n=89). Staff reported an increase in workload (72%, n=86) and expressed concerns related to rationale and evaluation of the guidelines, lack of education for both staff and pregnant South Asian women, increased workload and insufficient resources, patient safety and access to care. Challenges relating to shared decision making and communicating with women whose first language is not English were also identified., Discussion: This study has identified key barriers to and opportunities for improving implementation and highlighted additional challenges relating to new clinical guidelines which focus on culturally and linguistically diverse women., (Copyright © 2020 Australian College of Midwives. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Home births provide women a birth choice where they may feel more comfortable and confident in their ability to give birth., Problem: Most women in Victoria do not have publicly funded access to appropriately trained health professionals if they choose to give birth at home., Methods: This paper describes the process of setting up a publicly funded home birth service and provide details of description of the set up and governance. We also report outcomes over 9 years with respect to parity, transfer to hospital, adverse maternal and neonatal outcomes., Results: Of the 191 women who were still booked into the home birth program at 36 weeks gestation, 148 (77.5%) women gave birth at home and 43 (22.5%) women were transferred into the hospital. The overall rate of vaginal birth was also high among the women in the home birth program, 185 (96.9%) with no added complications ascribed to home births. Such as severe perineal trauma [n=1] 0.6% PPH [n=4] 2.7%, Apgar score less than 7 at 5min [n=0] admissions post home birth to special care nursery [n=2] 1.35%., Discussion: This unique study provides a detailed road map of setting up a home birth practice to facilitate other institutions keen to build a publicly funded home birth service. The birth outcome data was found to be consistent with other Australian studies on low risk home births., Conclusion: Well-designed home birth programs following best clinical practices and procedures can provide a safe birthing option for low risk women., (Copyright © 2019 Australian College of Midwives. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This literature review summarises the history of patient safety initiatives in health-care systems around the world. The need to improve patient safety is commonly called for following interrogation of data captured as a measure of patient safety including audit, clinical indicator reporting and evaluation methods. Many such reports exist for maternity services. Recommendations for improvement identified after review may be taken up, but there is little in the literature that demonstrates how clinicians consider such recommendations, implement improvement strategies and assess their impact. The authors of this paper concur with other authors who call for more research in this regard., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Objective:To compare the effect of comorbidities on the phenotype and outcomes of preeclampsia. Methods: A matched retrospective cohort study of women delivering at a tertiary maternity center following a diagnosis of preeclampsia. We collected data on signs and symptoms, biochemical markers, and maternal and perinatal outcomes. Results:We studied 474 women; 158 women with and 316 without comorbidities. Compared to women without comorbidities, women with comorbidities delivered earlier. They suffered fewer maternal but more neonatal complications. Conclusion: Women with comorbidities receive earlier intervention than women without comorbidities, which may lead to fewer maternal complications but worse neonatal outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives To determine whether sharing of routinely collected health service performance data could have predicted a critical safety failure at an Australian maternity service. Design Observational quantitative descriptive study. Setting A public hospital maternity service in Victoria, Australia. Data sources A public health service; the Victorian state health quality and safety office--Safer Care Victoria; the Health Complaints Commission; Victorian Managed Insurance Authority; Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity; Paediatric Infant Perinatal Emergency Retrieval; Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency. Main outcome measures Numbers and rates for events (activity, deaths, complaints, litigation, practitioner notifications). Correlation coefficients. Results Between 2000 and 2014 annual birth numbers at the index hospital more than doubled with no change in bed capacity, to be significantly busier than similar services as determined using an independent samples t-test (p<0.001). There were 36 newborn deaths, 11 of which were considered avoidable. Pearson correlations revealed a weak but significant relationship between number of births per birth suite room birth and perinatal mortality (r²=0.18, p=0.003). Independent samples t-tests demonstrated that the rates of emergency neonatal and perinatal transfer were both significantly lower than similar services (both p<0.001). Direct-to-service patient complaints increased ahead of recognised excess perinatal mortality. Conclusion While clinical activity data and direct-to-service patient complaints appear to offer promise as potential predictors of health service stress, complaints to regulators and medicolegal activity are less promising as predictors of system failure. Significant changes to how all data are handled would be required to progress such an approach to predicting health service failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Serial third trimester ultrasound examinations for fetal biometry are recommended for women with risk factors of fetal growth restriction (FGR). We conducted a retrospective cohort study on all singleton births in Victoria from 2009 to 2017 to assess how many women with major risk factors for FGR had serial third trimester biometry. Only 19.5% of women with at least one major risk factor for FGR had evidence of serial third trimester ultrasound assessments. The development and implementation of a state‐wide or nationwide guideline for early pregnancy risk factor assessment in FGR may be beneficial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Healthcare Complaints Analysis Tool (HCAT) is a coding taxonomy developed to interrogate patient complaints for quality and safety improvement lessons. The reliability of the tool has been tested in whole-of-system and whole-of-service settings. We sought to assess whether the taxonomy is functional at the level of a single hospital department. Objectives: To demonstrate the feasibility of applying HCAT in the setting of a large maternity department with a view to using it to inform quality and safety improvement opportunities. Methods: All 200 de-identified complaints made between 1 April 2011 and 30 April 2016 to a multi-site maternity service were collated. Each complaint entry included a summary of complaint content, complaint report date, complaint closure date and an incident severity rating (ISR). HCAT was applied to the analysis of complaints using a previously validated content analysis framework. A coding flowchart was developed to aid classification. Results: The 200 complaints involved 567 issues, an average of 2.8 issues per complaint. The most common issues were rude behaviour (n = 46), poor communication (n = 38), complaints relating to the quality of medical care (n = 36), nursing care (n = 35), surgical/medical complications (n = 28) and complaints relating to the attitude of staff members (n = 23). Complaints in the clinical domain made up the greatest proportion of both severe (ISR 1 – 66.7%) and moderate (ISR 2 – 64.5%) incidents. Conclusions: Using a reliable taxonomy, we were able to successfully interrogate patient complaints, identifying quality improvement targets within a single maternity service. The taxonomy appears suitable for adoption and application across health jurisdictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Women's decisions regarding vaccination during pregnancy are heavily influenced by maternity care provider (MCP) recommendations. Understanding why MCPs may not recommend vaccination is central to improving vaccination rates. Aims: To examine the knowledge, attitudes and practice of Australian MCPs to maternal vaccination. Methods: We surveyed obstetricians, midwives and general practitioners (GPs) between September and November 2016. Providers were asked about their knowledge and current practice, and about their perceived roles in discussing and administering maternal vaccinations. Results: Eight hundred and seventy surveys were completed. Each MCP group believed they had the primary responsibility for discussing vaccinations but all groups perceived GPs as primarily responsible for administering vaccines. More midwives had concerns about safety (21/129, 16%) than obstetricians (9/359, 3%) and GPs (7/326, 2%) (P < 0.001). Overall, 83% of MCPs recommended diphtheria‐tetanus‐acellular pertussis vaccination (dTpa) and 78% inactivated influenza vaccination (IIV) according to guidelines, with no differences between groups. Overall 77% provided dTpa onsite (GPs 99%, midwives 70%, obstetricians 60%, P < 0.001) and 71% provided IIV (GPs 99%, midwives 48%, obstetricians 54%, P < 0.001). Factors associated with recommending vaccination in accordance with guidelines and providing vaccination onsite were similar across groups: personal history of vaccination, confidence in vaccine knowledge, and awareness of recommendations for and belief in the safety of maternal dTpa. Conclusions: Among MCPs, the rates of recommending and providing maternal vaccination were higher than previously reported. Further improvements might be expected with increased awareness of guidelines, further education around vaccine safety, and by changing perceptions of the role of obstetricians and midwives in providing maternal vaccinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fifteen years ago a survey of Victorian public maternity services showed that the majority of services provided no fetal surveillance education to their staff and that only one in ten undertook any sort of assessment of staff knowledge. Today, all hospitals, public and private, provide training and all public hospitals require their midwifery and medical staff to undertake regular assessment of knowledge. The requirements of specialist obstetricians in private practice remain variable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Traditionally, managing patient complaints and medicolegal claims has been largely a reactive process. However, attention has recently turned to systematically learning from complaints and litigation to prevent recurrence. Within a high-volume maternity service, we explored whether developing predictive tools for patient complaints and litigation to support proactive management was feasible. Objectives To develop and assess two screening tools to predict the likelihood of (i) patient complaints and/or (ii) medicolegal claims arising from maternity care and to assess practitioner awareness of patient risk factors. Methods Births between 1 April 2011 and 30 April 2016 at a university hospital maternity service in Melbourne, Australia were considered. Univariate binary logistic regression was performed to identify the variables contributing to complaints and claims. Backwards-stepwise logistic regression was applied to develop each screening tool. Clinicians completed a survey to assess awareness of identified risk factors. Results In the study period, there were 41,443 births, 173 complaints and 19 claims. The complaints tool had only fair predictive capacity (receiver operating characteristic 0.72, p < 0.001) and the claims tool failed. Neither approach afforded sufficient discrimination to be useful in routine predictive modelling. One hundred and one practitioners completed the survey (response rate 15.7%). Practitioners were better at recognising risk factors for legal claims than for patient complaints. Conclusion Whilst new risk factors for patient complaints and medicolegal claims were identified, we were unable to develop a screening tool that was sufficiently discriminatory to be useful in routine predictive triaging. However, increasing practitioner awareness of key risk factors may afford opportunities to improve care quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Simulation‐based programs are increasingly being used to teach obstetrics and gynaecology examinations, but it is difficult to establish student learning acquired through them. Assessment may test student learning but its role in learning itself is rarely recognised. We undertook this study to assess medical and midwifery student learning through a simulation program using a pre‐test and post‐test design and also to evaluate use of assessment as a method of learning. Methods: The interprofessional simulation education program consisted of a brief pre‐reading document, a lecture, a video demonstration and a hands‐on workshop. Over a 24‐month period, 405 medical and 104 midwifery students participated in the study and were assessed before and after the program. Numerical data were analysed using paired t‐test and one‐way analysis of variance. Students’ perceptions of the role of assessment in learning were qualitatively analysed. Results: The post‐test scores were significantly higher than the pre‐test (P < 0.001) with improvements in scores in both medical and midwifery groups. Students described the benefit of assessment on learning in preparation of the assessment, reinforcement of learning occurring during assessment and reflection on performance cementing previous learning as a post‐assessment effect. Conclusion: Both medical and midwifery students demonstrated a significant improvement in their test scores and for most students the examination process itself was a positive learning experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Postpartum haemorrhage ( PPH) rates are increasing worldwide. The rate is particularly high in women undergoing an induced or augmented labour. In response to this, we altered our hospital's protocol for the management of the third stage of labour to recommend Syntometrine, in preference to oxytocin alone, for women being induced or augmented. We set out to assess the impact of the protocol change on the PPH rate. Materials and methods A random sample of 1200 women who had a singleton, term vaginal birth before and after the protocol change was taken. Exclusion criteria were then applied to match PPH risk status. Using a quasi-experimental study design, PPH rates were compared between women who had received oxytocin or Syntometrine for third stage management. Results Five hundred and forty-nine women received oxytocin prior to the protocol change and were compared with 333 women who received Syntometrine after protocol change. There was no difference in the PPH rate with respect to uterotonic used ( P = 0.9). There was no evidence of an interaction between labour type, third stage uterotonic and PPH ( P = 0.4). PPH rates were lowest for women who laboured spontaneously and received Syntometrine (19% oxytocin, 14% Syntometrine). The PPH rate was unchanged by uterotonic in women whose labour was augmented (34% for both). PPH was more common in women being induced who received Syntometrine (22% oxytocin, 27% Syntometrine). None of these differences were statistically significant. Conclusion Compared to oxytocin, Syntometrine did not reduce the rate of PPH in women with augmented or induced labour. Other approaches to reducing PPH rates are required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Obstetrics remains the largest medico-legal liability in healthcare. Neither an increasing awareness of patient safety nor a long tradition of reporting obstetric outcomes have reduced either rates of medical error or obstetric litigation. International debate continues about the best approaches to measuring and improving patient safety. In this study, we set out to assess the feasibility and utility of measuring the process of maternity care provision rather than care outcomes. Aims To report the development, application and results of a tool designed to measure the process of maternity care. Materials and Methods A dedicated audit tool was developed, informed by local, national and international standards guiding best practice and then applied to a convenience sample of individual healthcare records as proof of function. Omissions of care were rated in order of severity (low, medium or high) based on the likelihood of serious consequences on patient safety and outcome. Results The rate of high severity omissions of care was less that 2%. However, overall rates of all omissions varied from 0 to 99%, highlighting key areas for clinical practice improvement. Conclusions Measuring process of care provision, rather than pregnancy outcomes, is feasible and insightful, effectively identifying gaps in care provision and affording opportunities for targeted care improvement. This approach to improving patient safety, and potentially reducing litigation burden, promises to be a useful adjunct to the measurement of outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Core clinical skills acquisition is an essential component of undergraduate medical and midwifery education. Although interprofessional education is an increasingly common format for learning efficient teamwork in clinical medicine, its value in undergraduate education is less clear. We present a collaborative effort from the medical and midwifery schools of Monash University, Melbourne, towards the development of an educational package centred around a core skills-based workshop using low fidelity simulation models in an interprofessional setting. Detailed feedback on the package was positive with respect to the relevance of the teaching content, whether the topic was well taught by task trainers and simulation models used, pitch of level of teaching and perception of confidence gained in performing the skill on a real patient after attending the workshop. Overall, interprofessional core skills training using low fidelity simulation models introduced at an undergraduate level in medicine and midwifery had a good acceptance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monash Medical Centre (MMC) is a university-affiliated tertiary referral hospital in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The hospital has a large obstetric service and is the only quarternary obstetric unit in Victoria. The intensive care unit (ICU) is a busy 21-bed general unit with a broad casemix. While there is no designated state service obstetric ICU in Victoria, MMC ICU has increasingly tried to accept all obstetric patients referred, from both MMC and externally. To provide a local perspective on obstetric intensive care in Australia. A retrospective audit of obstetric ICU admissions over 2 years. Sixty women were admitted, of whom 46 were postpartum. Twenty-nine women were transferred from external sites. Mean maternal age was 30.7 years, mean gestational age 34.5 weeks and mean Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) version IIIj score 33. Obstetric haemorrhage was the most common admission diagnosis, followed by hypertensive spectrum disorders. Three women were admitted for induction of labour. Median length of stay was 35 h. Twenty-seven women (45%) required mechanical ventilation. No woman died in the ICU, although one died in hospital post-ICU discharge. No data were collected on neonatal outcomes. Critically ill obstetric patients can be managed successfully in a general ICU with obstetric input. It may be sensible to cluster these patients into units that are best equipped to deal with them, especially in the ante- and peripartum period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To compare the rates of attempted and successful instrumental births, intrapartum cesarean delivery, and subsequent perinatal and maternal morbidity before and after implementing a training intervention to arrest the decline in forceps competency among resident obstetricians.Methods: This retrospective cohort study examined all attempted instrumental births at Monash Health from 2005 to 2014. We performed an interrupted time-series analysis to compare outcomes of attempted instrumental births in 2005-2009 with those in 2010-2014.Results: There were 72,490 births from 2005 to 2014 at Monash Health, of which 8,789 (12%) were attempted instrumental vaginal births. After the intervention, rates of forceps births increased [autoregressive integrated moving average coefficient (β) 1.5, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.03-1.96; P<.001], and vacuum births decreased (β -1.43, 95% CI -2.5 to -0.37; P<.01). Rates of postpartum hemorrhage decreased (β -1.3, 95% CI -2.07 to -0.49; P=.002) and epidural use increased (β 0.03, 95% CI 0.02-0.05; P<.001). There was no change in rates of unsuccessful instrumental births (β -0.39, 95% CI -3.03 to 2.43; P=.83), intrapartum cesarean delivery (β -0.29, 95% CI -0.55 to 0.14; P=.24), third- and fourth-degree tears (β -1.04, 95% CI -3.1 to 1.00; P=.32), or composite neonatal morbidity (β -0.18, 95% CI -0.38 to 0.02, P=.08). Unsuccessful instrumental births were more likely to be in nulliparous women (P<.001), less likely to have a senior obstetrician present (P<.001), be at later gestation (P<.001), and involved larger birth weight neonates (P<.001).Conclusion: A policy of ensuring obstetric forceps competency before beginning vacuum training results in more forceps births, fewer postpartum hemorrhages, and no increase in third- and fourth-degree perineal injuries or episiotomies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Objective: To assess the uptake of influenza vaccination by pregnant women and maternity care providers and explore their attitudes towards influenza vaccination. Design, setting and participants: Cross-sectional survey administered in a Victorian tertiary level public hospital to 337 pregnant women and 96 maternity care providers. Results: 31.3% of patients planned to or had received influenza vaccination this year, but only a quarter had received education about influenza. Women were more likely to receive influenza vaccination if they had been vaccinated in the last two years (RR 4.5, 95% CI: 3.1–6.4, p <0.001), received education about influenza (RR 2.3, 95% CI: 1.6–3.2, p <0.001) or believed that they were at high risk of influenza-related complications while pregnant (RR 2.0, 95% CI: 1.4–2.7, p <0.001). While only 56.8% of maternity care providers believed pregnant women were at high risk of influenza-related complications, 72.9% would recommend influenza vaccination to all pregnant women. Of the maternity care providers studied, 69% planned to or had been vaccinated in 2011, with this group more likely to recommend vaccination to their patients (RR 2.0, 95% CI: 1.3–3.0, p <0.001). Significantly more maternity care providers indicated that they would routinely recommend influenza vaccination than the proportion of patients who reported receiving education. Conclusions: Influenza vaccination rates in pregnant women are low, reflecting inadequate patient education despite most maternity care providers indicating that they would routinely recommend influenza vaccination. Increasing influenza vaccination uptake by women in pregnancy will require better education of both women and maternity care providers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]