“Private suites. Caring staff. Room for family.” Woohoo!
On the way home last night I drove past this billboard, turned around, and went back to snap this photo. See, hospitals know that if we have a good maternity experience we’re more likely to come back when sick, so they offer this.
Fine with me, but when we DO come back, shouldn’t we get what they promoted?? Let’s ASK them to provide it, for ALL healthcare! Otherwise it’d be kind of a bait & switch, now wouldn’t it. :)
Empowered patients & families praise ’em when they do well, and when they don’t, we ask for what we need. Do it!
Edit: In a comment below, @MightyCasey points to another factor I should have noticed: while hospital marketing departments are promoting the service provided in their maternity suites, the grim reality remains that the US has the worst maternal mortality rates in the developed world. Here’s the chart from one of the NPR posts Casey links to, which uses data from a big (38 page) article in Lancet last year. Look at US healthcare’s performance in the past generation – this is the number of dead mothers per 100,000 live births; :
In short, while the marketing is ramping up, actual delivery of maternal care is getting much worse, especially compared to what other developed nations are doing.
China, for instance (not shown in this graph) has improved since 2000 from 85.2 maternal deaths to 17.7, while we’ve gone from 17.5 to 26.4. This matches my recent post on the e-patient blog about “amenable mortality,” which is whether a system actually delivers the care that it knows how to do.
For many years hospitals have been in an arms race to build the most lavish and inviting maternity wards. I believe they are motivated by profit margins and for the adjacent revenue such as prenatal care, imaging, neonatal ICU, etc., as well as for subsequent care that you point out.
However, the non-obstetric care experience is generally not up to the standards set by the delivery experience.
Why thank you, doctor. :)
> non-obstetric care experience is generally not
> up to the standards set by the delivery experience.
My point precisely. Bait & switch, in that sense. And we empowereds will keep asking for it to be what we know they’re actually capable of. :-)
btw, Planetree hospitals DO have that …
I’m all for family participation and more care, but the lavish wards are also very expensive and are leading to the trend towards excluding maternity care from basic insurance package.
Can we create a caring, participatory experience that is not overly expensive? With enough money, you can bring lots of staff and everyone will feel taken care of.
I’m with Danny on the “arms race” comment – have been saying exactly that about hospitals for years. Add to that the dire – as in “worse than 3rd world” – stats on maternal mortality in the US, and I’m not convinced by billboards that *anyone* gives a fat-rat’s about women and their childbirth experience w/out seeing their C-section rates.
Context on that maternal mortality thing:
http://www.npr.org/2017/05/12/528098789/u-s-has-the-worst-rate-of-maternal-deaths-in-the-developed-world
http://www.npr.org/2017/07/05/535660628/u-s-hospitals-struggle-to-protect-mothers-when-childbirth-turns-deadly
Marketing departments can say all sorts of things. F’rinstance, around my city, there are signs in front of all local hospitals (there are 14, across three systems) hollering their status as “best heart hospital” and “best hospital for women,” along with other sales-speak of questionable value to actual heart and ob/gyn patients.
Imma file this under the same tag as the all-white-male billboard talking up a women’s wall of honor at a nursing research institute in Canada.
Very well said, Casey – I’m going to edit the post to point to your comment. As much as I talk about healthcare falling short of its potential, I didn’t connect THOSE dots.
Got any more info on that billboard? Google failed me just now.
Adweek: http://www.adweek.com/creativity/idiotic-billboard-celebrating-women-shows-three-grinning-dudes-suits-148373/
IMHO, the “arms race” to build more homey, participatory maternity wards began when the home birth movement became more of a force to be reckoned with. If a more “homey” environment was what women wanted, then hospitals could provide that. Which, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with maternal and child morbidity and mortality rates….. No effect.
My first pregnancy was completed in a hospital. My second was completed at home. Very, very different experiences. While I applaud the move toward more family-friendly environments for such things in hospitals, it’s not the whole story. And I think Dave is absolutely correct–more patient-centered and family friendly ought to be the standard in all aspects of medical care.