The Obstetric Emergency Department: Correcting a Disparity of Care

Pregnant women are managed differently than any other patient in the hospital. If you’re a man with a broken arm, a child with a runny nose, or a senior citizen with chest pains, you’re going to see a physician when you present to the Emergency Department (ED). But if you’re a pregnant woman in the second half of your pregnancy, you’re deemed too high risk for the ED. Women more than 20 weeks pregnant presenting with an obstetric complaint are sent to the Labor and Delivery unit, where a nurse typically evaluates them because there is no physician present.

Nurses traditionally manage these patients with the assistance of the on-call provider by phone. This increases risk, as the provider is dependent upon the observations and information provided by the nurse and is unable to directly interact with the patient. Traditional phone triage creates inefficiencies, longer wait times, and unnecessary stress on nurses being asked to practice beyond their clinical scope. This disparity of care increases risk and liability for local providers and hospitals, and it factors largely into patient dissatisfaction.

An Innovative Solution

In 2006, Ob Hospitalist Group founder Dr. Chris Swain addressed this disparity of care more thoroughly than any existing OB/GYN hospitalist program available at the time. He created an OB/GYN hospitalist model characterized by the creation of an Obstetric Emergency Department (OBED) within a hospital’s Labor and Delivery unit. As a veteran OB/GYN, Dr. Swain knew that triage in Labor and Delivery would be safer and more consistent with the level of care received by patients in the other hospital units if there were a dedicated OBED staffed by OB/GYNs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. He also recognized that an OBED can function as an extension of the main Emergency Department with relatively minor modifications.

Ob Hospitalist Group 10 Centimeters Drive • Mauldin, SC 29662 • P: 864.908.3530 • F: 864.627.9920 • w.OBHG.com

An Ob Hospitalist Group OBED is staffed with Board Certified OB/GYNs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and offers a dedicated space for emergent-care experienced hospitalists to care for expectant women who are experiencing a pregnancy-related emergency. The OBED’s Labor and Delivery location ensures quick access to surgical care if needed.

Not only is a dedicated OBED much safer and more satisfying for patients, but this model allows hospitals to capture missed revenue. With an Ob Hospitalist Group OBED, the process for documenting patient visits is more thorough, and hospital fees are billed to the patient’s insurer without breaking the global for the local provider.

Conditions commonly treated in the OBED include preterm labor, abnormal vaginal bleeding, ruptured membranes, labor checks, decreased fetal movement, and increased blood pressure.

Advantages of the OBED Model:

Increased patient safety and satisfaction Increased quality of care Reduced delays in care Reduced litigation through improved outcomes Decreased readmissions Reduced number of unattended deliveries Reduced C-section rates Improved education, morale, and satisfaction among nursing staff Increased acceptance of maternal transports/reduced need for outbound transports Enhanced continuity of care and documentation Increased NICU utilization Increased delivery volume/market share Improved billing and revenue capture Increased satisfaction and productivity of community providers

As the original architect of the Obstetrical Emergency Department, Ob Hospitalist Group is an experienced, full-service OB/GYN hospitalist provider. By partnering with us, hospitals are able to shift the burden of management and oversight of their OB/GYN hospitalists to the company that did it first and does it best. We are committed solely to creating and implementing OB/GYN hospitalist programs with dedicated OBEDs to provide the highest level of care to all women presenting to the hospital – regardless of time, complication, or circumstance.

We invite you to discover more about OBHG and the advantages that our customized programs deliver to our partner hospitals, physicians, and patients by visiting www.OBHG.com or contacting an OBHG representative via Programs@OBHG.com or 800.967.2289.

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Ob Hospitalist Group 10 Centimeters Drive • Mauldin, SC 29662 • P: 864.908.3530 • F: 864.627.9920 • www.OBHG.com