The American Hospital Association (AHA) and Epic are collaborating to offer a set of tools at the point of care to aid in the detection and treatment of postpartum hemorrhage (PPH).
PPH is one of the most common and serious complications of childbirth. It is characterized by rapid and significant blood loss, causing a dangerous drop in blood pressure that can result in organ failure or—in extreme cases—death.
Occurring in 3% to 5% of all deliveries, PPH is responsible for 11.2% of maternal deaths in the U.S., according to the AHA. It is also the leading cause of severe maternal morbidity. Notably, 40% of such hemorrhages occur in patients without any risk factors.
The AHA and Epic are raising awareness about point-of-care tools in the electronic health record that can help healthcare providers prevent, detect and treat PPH.
A PPH toolkit is now available to users of Epic’s Stork Obstetrics Information System. This toolkit includes methods of assessing a mother’s risk of hemorrhage, a mechanism to continuously refresh risk assessments throughout the childbirth and postpartum period and embedded guides to support clinical decision-making within clearly defined risk categories as well as to facilitate treatment of an acute hemorrhage, all within a clinician’s obstetric workflow, the organizations said.
“The American Hospital Association and Epic share a deep commitment to improving health outcomes for moms and babies,” said Chris DeRienzo, M.D., AHA chief physician executive and a neonatologist, in a statement. “This new collaboration amplifies our efforts to drive continuous improvement by sharing evidence-based resources to help reduce this tragic condition. It’s a natural extension of AHA’s Patient Safety Initiative, a collaborative data-driven effort to highlight and learn from patient safety progress at hospitals and health systems around the country.”
Through this joint effort, the AHA and Epic can support hospitals in adopting point-of-care tech tools with programming, resources and the opportunity to engage with hospitals already seeing successful outcomes with the risk assessments.
“Every mother deserves a safe childbirth experience,” said Jackie Gerhart, M.D., chief medical officer at Epic, in a statement. “That’s why we’re working together to deliver proven, point-of-care tools that help clinicians prevent and manage postpartum hemorrhage. The goal of our joint effort is to help caregivers act quickly when every second counts.”
Hospitals can identify patients’ risk of hemorrhage by embedding a hemorrhage risk assessment into their obstetric workflows. According to clinicians, the PPH risk assessment should be done at admission, at the start of the second stage of labor, upon transfer to postpartum care and whenever the patient’s condition changes. These assessments categorize patients into low-, medium- and high-risk categories, providing recommendations for medications and other supplies to prevent and treat hemorrhage within each risk category.
Baptist Health in Arkansas, which delivers about 6,800 babies yearly, implemented the postpartum risk assessment tool developed by the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN), a maternal emergency narrator and a blood loss calculator in its EHR in three phases. Staff participated in hemorrhage drills to ensure they mastered the tools to assist with treating a hemorrhaging patient, according to the AHA.
WakeMed Health & Hospitals, a not-for-profit health system based in Raleigh, N.C., is home to three full-service hospitals and birthing centers as well as a level IV neonatal intensive care unit. The health system reported 9,915 births during its 2024 fiscal year. Using the AWHONN postpartum risk assessment tool, a maternal emergency narrator and a quantitative blood loss calculator in the health system’s EHR, WakeMed has seen a consistent decrease in obstetric hemorrhage rates since 2022, the AHA reported.
Publisher: Source link
