Newborn baby photo by Janko Ferlic on unsplash.com

U.S. News & World Report has revealed the 2022-2023 Best Hospitals for Maternity Care evaluation, used to assist expectant parents in making informed decisions about where to receive maternity care.

One local hospital made the list.

After evaluating nearly 650 hospitals that provide labor and delivery services, U.S. News & World Report found that fewer than 300 hospitals received a High Performing designation, the highest award a hospital can earn in maternity care with a focus on uncomplicated pregnancies. The criteria may not apply to high-risk pregnancies.

“When expectant parents are considering their options for welcoming a baby into the world, the Best Hospitals for Maternity Care is designed to help them identify hospitals that excel in delivering babies for uncomplicated pregnancies,” said Min Hee Seo, senior health data scientist at U.S. News.  

Kaweah Health Medical Center (Kaweah Health) received a High Performing designation. Kaweah was awarded this designation in the 2021-2022 Best Hospitals for Maternity Care evaluation as well.

The hospital provides a multitude of services for parents including access to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), perinatal depression screening and services and access to childbirth classes.

According to the U.S. News & World Report, Kaweah Health delivers more babies on average than other hospitals in the area, which could reflect a larger, busier labor and delivery program.

This year’s methodology includes episiotomy rates, vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC) rates, and whether each hospital met new federal criteria for “birthing-friendly” practices — all of which were not previously factored into the evaluation prior to this year. 

Kaweah Health’s ratings in the evaluation methodology categories are as follows:

• Newborn complications: At this hospital, 2% to 2.6% of lower-risk births involved newborn complications. The average rate of hospitals in general is 3.2%.
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• Episiotomy: Kaweah Health’s episiotomy rate is less than 5%.
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• Birthing-friendly: Kaweah Health met criteria to be recognized as Birthing-Friendly because it participated in a quality improvement collaborative and implemented patient safety practices to improve maternal outcomes.This includes addressing maternal morbidity and complications.
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• Transparency on Racial/Ethnic Disparities: This hospital tracked and reported its race- and ethnicity-specific performance on one of several performance measures for which racial and ethnic disparities may exist. Transparency is important to patient choice of care and in raising industry standards.
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• Scheduled early pregnancies: This hospital never or rarely schedules delivery earlier than the recommended 39 weeks of pregnancy, unless there is an important medical reason for early delivery. This is to protect and ensure the health of the baby.
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• C-sections: This hospital usually avoids C-sections unless absolutely necessary. While some C-sections are necessary operations, unnecessary C-sections should be avoided because they pose long-term health risks to the baby and the mother.
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• Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC): This hospital routinely offers to support VBAC with a rate of 11.5%. This is a birthing option for mothers who have previously experienced a cesarean birth and would like to undergo VBAC rather than another C-section.

 

The U.S. News Best Hospitals for Maternity Care methodology is based entirely on objective measures of quality of care including C-section rates in lower-risk pregnancies, newborn complication rates, exclusive breast milk feeding rates and early elective delivery rates.  

All information used to build the Best Hospitals for Maternity Care evaluation was provided by hospitals who self-reported data to U.S. News & World Report via an online survey.

The full Best Hospitals for Maternity Care evaluation can be accessed online at U.S. News & World Report.