Improving Intrapartum Care and Services

A Quality Improvement Collaborative to Enhance Maternal and Newborn Health (MNH) Care Delivery by Adopting Global Guidance within Local Contexts in Low-Resource Settings

In private hospitals in Southern India, the gap between current and ideal performance in labour room practices warranted a quality improvement (QI) initiative. The World Health Organization (WHO) Safe Childbirth Checklist (SCC) is a patient safety tool to improve adherence to 28 essential birth practices. A QI Collaborative was initiated with the Obstetric Clinical Society of Southern India (OGSSI) and Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Organisations (CAHO) to implement SCC in member hospitals and enhance childbirth care delivery. The objectives were to implement SCC in hospitals via low-cost innovations and to evaluate key metrics in resource-challenged settings using quality tools.

Implementing a Multifaceted Approach to Reduce Fresh Stillbirths in Mbarara District, Uganda 

The fresh stillbirth (FSB) rate in Uganda in 2019/2020 was 12 per 1,000 births; in Mbarara District, it was 7.3 per 1,000 births. These rates exceed the national target of less than 5 per 1,000 births. Research shows that 40% of the FSBs in Uganda can be prevented by improving the quality of service.

Assessing the Needs for Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care (EmONC) Health Facilities in Burundi to Support Maternal and Newborn Health Service Delivery Redesign (MNH-Redesign) 

Despite Burundi having formed a network of 112 emergency obstetric and newborn care (EmONC) health facilities, the country continues to struggle with high rates of maternal and newborn deaths. This study generated evidence on the needs of EmONC health facilities to improve maternal and newborn survival.

Feasibility of a Sustainable Emergency Obstetric Care Training System in Nigeria 

As part of a maternal mortality reduction strategy, emergency obstetric and newborn care (EmONC)-competent skilled health personnel (SHP) working within integrated teams to provide good quality care are required. Standard EmONC training approaches in Nigeria are the partner funding-dependent National Life Saving Skills (LSS) programme and the annual Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN) Mandatory Continuous Professional Development Programme (MCPDP) for practice license renewal. We designed and implemented a center of excellence (CoE) for EmONC approach embedded in the college of Nursing and Midwifery Kwara State, Nigeria. The CoE was equipped for competency-based EmONC training and linked to the MCPDP practice license renewal programme. We conducted a feasibility study on the CoE approach to train SHP in EmONC in Nigeria.