In mid-March, half of the teams in the collaborative met either in Hickory or Wilson to discuss areas of success and ongoing challenge while sampling local barbecue. Many teams have made significant progress toward their goals and shared innovative strategies; most teams identifed opportunities for further improvement. Below are some of the ideas shared by teams at the meetings:
- Several hospitals have utilized an existing peer review process or developed one as part of their work on this project to review cases scheduled <39 weeks without medical indication or where the medical indication is not supported by evidence in the chart.
- Labor & Delivery units with dedicated operating rooms have a greater ability to put a "hard stop" on scheduling repeat low transverse c-sections <39 weeks.
- At some hospitals where c-sections are done in the main OR, all c-sections must be cleared by L&D before they are posted by the OR scheduler.
- Physicians report that the March of Dimes brochure "Why the last weeks of pregnancy count" has been a helpful tool when counseling patients about the timing of a scheduled delivery.
- Some hospitals include messages about waiting until 39 weeks for planned deliveries in the patient education materials patients receive early in pregnancy or as part of their marketing videos about their maternity services.
