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Providing and Measuring Quality Postpartum Care

  • Intrapartum and Postpartum Obstetrics (S R Easter, Section Editor)
  • Published:
Current Obstetrics and Gynecology Reports Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose of Review

Providing care and supporting patients through the postpartum period is essential to ensuring their physical and emotional health and wellbeing. Several metrics have been proposed as a means of assessing and measuring high quality postpartum care, although all have some limitations. In this review, we consider currently used metrics and additional considerations for measuring the quality of postpartum care.

Recent Findings

For quality measures to be useful, they must be easily definable and observable. Commonly used types include outcome measures (for a specific health outcome) and process measures (which measure actions associated with health outcomes). As many postpartum outcomes of interest are uncommon, outcome measures may be limited in their ability to detect improvements, particularly at the local level. Current outcome measures used include rates of maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity. Process measures for postpartum care include postpartum care visits, receipt of screening services, and breastfeeding and contraception rates. While many of these metrics focus on safe and effective care, it is equally important to consider other domains such as patient centeredness (using patient-reported outcome measures) and equitable care (ensuring that postpartum care improves outcomes for all individuals of varying race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, etc.).

Summary

Postpartum quality metrics are frequently limited by the quality and availability of data that can be used for these assessments. There remains a need for more comprehensive assessments of postpartum care quality that reflect the full scope of health for an individual. Development of these metrics will likely require local-, system-, and population-level investment.

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  1. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Austen 4, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, MA, 02114, USA

    Taylor S. Freret & Mark A. Clapp

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  1. Taylor S. Freret
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Correspondence to Mark A. Clapp.

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Dr. Clapp has private equity and serves on the Medical Advisory Board for Delfina Care, which provides no research support nor has any relation, influence, or oversight to the submitted work.

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Freret, T.S., Clapp, M.A. Providing and Measuring Quality Postpartum Care. Curr Obstet Gynecol Rep 11, 152–158 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13669-022-00340-9

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